Sources page biographical material

6.AJ. GEOMETRIC ILLUSIONS
There are a great many illusions. This will only give some general studies and some specific sources, though the sources of many illusions are unknown.
An exhibition by Al Seckel says there are impossible geometric patterns in a mosaic floor in the Roman villa at Fishbourne, c75, but it is not clear if this was intentional.

Anonymous 15C French illustrator of Giovanni Boccaccio, De Claris Mulieribus, MS Royal 16 Gv in the British Library. F. 54v: Collecting cocoons and weaving silk. ??NYS -- reproduced in: The Medieval Woman An Illuminated Book of Postcards, HarperCollins, 1991. This shows a loom(?) frame with uprights at each corner and the crosspieces joining the tops of the end uprights as though front and rear are reversed compared to the ground.

Seckel, 2002a, below, p. 25 (= 2002b, p. 175), says Leonardo da Vinci created the first anamorphic picture, c1500.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1537-1593). One of his paintings shows a bowl of vegetables, but when turned over, it is a portrait. Seckel, 2000, below, fig. 109, pp. 120 & 122 (= 2002b, fig, 107, pp. 118 & 120), noting that this is the first known invertible picture, but see next entry.

Topsy turvy coin, mid 16C. Seckel, 2002a, fig. 65, p. 80 (omitted in 2002b), shows an example which shows the Pope, but turns around to show the Devil. Inscription around edge reads: CORVI MALUM OVUM MALII.

Robert Smith. A Compleat System of Opticks in Four Books. Cambridge, 1738. He includes a picture of a distant windmill for which one cannot tell whether the sails are in front or behind the mill, apparently the first publication of this visual ambiguity. ??NYS -- cited by: Nicholas J. Wade; Visual Allusions Pictures of Perception; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hove, East Sussex, 1990, pp. 17 & 25, with a similar picture.

L. A. Necker. LXI. Observations on some remarkable optical phœnomena seen in Switzerland; and on an optical phœnomenon which occurs on viewing a figure of a crystal or geometrical solid. Phil. Mag. (3) 1:5 (Nov 1832) 329-337. This is a letter from Necker, written on 24 May 1832. On pp. 336-337, Necker describes the visual reversing figure known as the Necker cube which he discovered in drawing rhomboid crystals. This is also quoted in Ernst; The Eye Beguiled, pp. 23-24]. Richard L. Gregory [Mind in Science; Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1981, pp. 385 & 594] and Ernst say that this was the first ambiguous figure to be described.

See Thompson, 1882, in 6.AJ.2, for illusions caused by rotations.

F. C. Müller-Lyer. Optische Urtheilstusehungen. Arch. Physiol. Suppl. 2 (1889) 263-270. Cited by Gregory in The Intelligent Eye. Many versions of the illusion. But cf below.

Wehman. New Book of 200 Puzzles. 1908. The cube puzzle, p. 37. A 'baby blocks' pattern of cubes, which appears to show six cubes piled in a corner one way and seven cubes the other way. I don't recall seeing this kind of puzzle in earlier sources, though this pattern of rhombuses is common on cathedral floors dating back to the Byzantine era or earlier.

James Fraser. British Journal of Psychology (Jan 1908). Introduces his 'The Unit of Direction Illusion' in many forms. ??NYS -- cited in his popular article in Strand Mag., see below. Seckel, 2000, below, has several versions. On p. 44, note to p. 9 (= 2002b, p. 44, note to p. 9), he says Fraser created a series of these illusions in 1906.

H. E. Carter. A clever illusion. Curiosities section, Strand Mag. 378 (No. 219) (Mar 1909) 359. An example of Fraser's illusion with no indication of its source.

James Fraser. A new illusion. What is its scientific explanation? Strand Mag. 38 (No. 224) (Aug 1909) 218-221. Refers to the Mar issue and says he introduced the illusion in the above article and that the editors have asked him for a popular article on it. 16 illustrations of various forms of his illusion.

Lietzmann, Walther & Trier, Viggo. Wo steckt der Fehler? 3rd ed., Teubner, 1923. [The Vorwort says that Trier was coauthor of the 1st ed, 1913, and contributed most of the Schülerfehler (students' mistakes). He died in 1916 and Lietzmann extended the work in a 2nd ed of 1917 and split it into Trugschlüsse and this 3rd ed. There was a 4th ed., 1937. See Lietzmann for a later version combining both parts.] II. Täuschungen der Anschauung, pp. 7-13.

Lietzmann, Walther. Wo steckt der Fehler? 3rd ed., Teubner, Stuttgart, (1950), 1953. (Strens/Guy has 3rd ed., 1963.) (See: Lietzmann & Trier. There are 2nd ed, 1952??; 5th ed, 1969; 6th ed, 1972. Math. Gaz. 54 (1970) 182 says the 5th ed appears to be unchanged from the 3rd ed.) II. Täuschungen der Anschauung, pp. 15-25. A considerable extension of the 1923 ed.

Williams. Home Entertainments. 1914. Colour discs for the gramophone, pp. 207-212. Discusses several effects produced by spirals and eccentric circles on discs when rotated.

Gerald H. Fisher. The Frameworks for Perceptual Localization. Report of MOD Research Project70/GEN/9617, Department of Psychology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1968. Good collection of examples, with perhaps the best set of impossible figures.

Pp. 42 47 -- reversible perspectives.

Pp. 56 65 -- impossible and ambiguous figures.

Appendix 6, p.190 -- 18 reversible figures.

Appendix 7, pp. 191 192 -- 12 reversible silhouettes.

Appendix 8, p. 193 -- 12 impossible figures.

Appendix 14, pp. 202 203 -- 72 geometrical illusions.

Harvey Long. "It's All In How You Look At It". Harvey Long & Associates, Seattle, 1972. 48pp collection of examples with a few references.

Bruno Ernst [pseud. of J. A. F. Rijk]. (Avonturen met Onmogelijke Figuren; Aramith Uitgevers, Holland, 1985.) Translated as: Adventures with Impossible Figures. Tarquin, Norfolk, 1986. Describes tribar and many variations of it, impossible staircase, two pronged trident. Pp. 76 77 reproduces an Annunciation of 14C in the Grote Kerk, Breda, with an impossible perspective. P. 78 reproduces Print XIV of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's "Carceri de Invenzione", 1745, with an impossible 4 bar.

Diego Uribe. Catalogo de impossibilidades. Cacumen (Madrid) 4 (No. 37) (Feb 1986) 9 13. Good summary of impossible figures. 15 references to recent work.

Bruno Ernst. Escher's impossible figure prints in a new context. In:  H. S. M. Coxeter, et al., eds.; M. C. Escher -- Art and Science; North Holland (Elsevier), Amsterdam, 1986, pp. 124 134. Pp. 128 129 discusses the Breda Annunciation, saying it is 15C and quoting a 1912 comment by an art historian on it. There is a colour reproduction on p. 394. P. 130 shows and discusses briefly Bruegel's "The Magpie on the Gallows", 1568. Pp. 130 131 discusses and illustrates the Piranesi.

Bruno Ernst. (Het Begoochelde Oog, 1986?.) Translated by Karen Williams as: The Eye Beguiled. Benedikt Taschen Verlag, Köln, 1992. Much expanded version of his previous book, with numerous new pictures and models by new artists in the field. Chapter 6: Origins and history, pp. 68-93, discusses and quotes almost everything known. P. 68 shows a miniature of the Madonna and Child from the Pericope of Henry II, compiled by 1025, now in the Bayersche Staatsbibliothek, Munich, which is similar in form to the Breda Annunciation (stated to be 15C). (However, Seckel, 1997, below, reproduces it as 2 and says it is c1250.) P. 69 notes that Escher invented the impossible cube used in his Belvedere. P. 82 is a colour reproduction of Duchamp's 1916-1917 'Apolinère Enameled' - see 6.AJ.2. Pp. 83-84 shows and discusses Piranesi. Pp. 84-85 show and discuss Hogarth's 'False Perspective' of 1754. Reproduction and brief mention of Brueghel (= Bruegel) on p. 85. Discussion of the Breda Annunciation on pp. 85-86. Pp. 87-88 show and discuss a 14C Byzantine Annunciation in the National Museum, Ochrid. Pp. 88-89 show and discuss Scott Kim's impossible four-dimensional tribar.

J. Richard Block & Harold E. Yuker. Can You Believe Your Eyes? Brunner/Mazel, NY, 1992. Excellent survey of the field of illusions, classified into 17 major types -- e.g. ambiguous figures, unstable figures, ..., two eyes are better than one. They give as much information as they can about the origins. They give detailed sources for the following -- originals ??NYS. These are also available as two decks of playing cards.

W. E. Hill. My wife and my mother-in-law. Puck, (6 Nov 1915) 11. [However, Julian Rothenstein & Mel Gooding; The Paradox Box; Redstone Press, London, 1993; include a reproduction of a German visiting card of 1888 with a version of this illusion. The English caption by James Dalgety is: My Wife and my Mother-in-law. Cf Seckel, 1997, below.] Ernst, just above, cites Hill and says he was a cartoonist, but gives no source. Long, above, asserts it was designed by E. G. Boring, an American psychologist.

G. H. Fisher. Mother, father and daughter. Amer. J. Psychology 81 (1968) 274-277.

G. Kanisza. Subjective contours. SA 234:4 (Apr 1976) 48-52. (Kanisza triangles.)

Al Seckel, 1997. Illusions in Art. Two decks of playing cards in case with notes. Deck 1 -- Classics. Works from Roman times to the middle of the 20th Century. Deck 2 -- Contemporary. Works from the second half of the 20th Century. Y&B Associates, Hempstead, NY, 1997. This gives further details on some of the classic illusions -- some of this is entered above and in 6.AU and some is given below.

10: Rabbit/Duck. Devised by Joseph (but notes say Robert) Jastrow, c1900. Seckel, 2000, below, p. 159 (= 2002b, p. 156), says Joseph Jastrow, c1900.

10: My Wife and My Mother-in-Law, anonymous, 1888. However, in an exhibition, Seckel's text implies the 1888 German card doesn't have a title and the title first occurs on an 1890 US card. Seckel, 2000, below, p. 122 (= 2002b, p. 120), says Boring took it from a popular 19C puzzle trading card.

Al Seckel, 2000. The Art of Optical Illusions. Carlton, 2000. 144 well reproduced illusions with brief notes. All figures except 69-70 are included in Seckel, 2002b.

J. Richard Block. Seeing Double Over 200 Mind-Bending Illusions. Routledge, 2002. Update of Block & Yuker, 1992.

Edgar Rubin. Rubin's Vase. 1921. This is the illusion where there appears to be a vase, but the outsides appear to be two face profiles. [Pp. 8-11.] But Seckel, 2000, above, p. 122 (= 2002b, p. 120), says Rubin's inspiration was a 19C puzzle card.

My wife and my mother-in-law. P. 17 says Hill's version may derive from a late 1880s advertising postcard for Phenyo-Caffein (Worcester, Massachusetts), labelled 'My Girl & Her Mother', reproduced on p. 17.

P. 18 has G. H. Fisher's 1968 triple image, labelled 'Mother, Father and Daughter-in-Law'.

P. 44 says that Rabbit/Duck was devised by Joseph Jastrow in 1888.

Al Seckel, 2002a. More Optical Illusions. Carlton, 2002. 137 well reproduced illusions with brief notes, different than in Seckel, 2000, above. All figures except 65-66, 86-87, 95-95, 137 are included in Seckel, 2002b, but with different figure and page numbers.

Al Seckel, 2002b. The Fantastic World of Optical Illusions. Carlton, 2002. This is essentially a combination of Seckel, 2000, and Seckel, 2002a, both listed above. The Introduction is revised. Figures 69-70 of the first book and 65-66, 86-87, 94-95, 137 of the second book are omitted. The remaining figures are then numbered consecutively. The page of Further Reading in the first book is put at the end of this combined book.
Here I make some notes about origins of other illusions, but I have fewer details on these.
The Müller-Lyer Illusion -- <-> vs >---< was proposed by Zollner in 1859 and described by Johannes Peter Müller (1801-1858) & Lyer in 1889. This seems to be a confusion, as the 1889 article is by F. C. Müller-Lyer, cf above. Lietzmann & Trier, p. 7, date it as 1887.

The Bisection Illusion -- with a vertical segment bisecting a horizontal segment, but above it -- was described by Albert Oppel (1831-1865) and Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) in 1865.

Zollner's Illusion -- parallel lines crossed by short lines at 45^o, alternately in opposite directions -- was noticed by Johann K. F. Zollner (1834-1882) on a piece of fabric with a similar design.

Hering's Illusion -- with parallel lines crossed by numerous lines through a point between the lines -- was invented by Ewals Hering (1834-1918) in 1860.