Grand Palais Opens Exhibition of Paintings by Artists Fascinated by Optical Illusions and Visual Puzzles

Maurits Cornelis Escher, Concave et convexe, 1955. Lithographie, 33.5 x 27.5 cm. © M.C. Escher Foundation.

Grand Palais Opens Exhibition of Paintings by Artists Fascinated by Optical Illusions and Visual Puzzles

(Source ArtDaily)
PARIS.- Artists fascinated by optical illusions and keen to explore the limits of painting have long indulged in visual puzzles and changing perspectives. Playing on the ambiguity of double images, which change with the observer’s point of view, many painters have covered their tracks and introduced several meanings, often hidden, in images that can be read in multiple ways. They did so for fun, but also to give their works moral or symbolic meaning, or even religious, political or sexual connotations. Apart from Arcimboldo’s famous composite images or reversible portraits, and the inventions of Dali, the unchallenged grand master of ambiguous imagery, double images have often been dismissed as fortuitous creations, attributed to chance rather than conscious acts and deliberate decisions on the artist’s part. That is why the curators of this exhibition have focused exclusively on double images that have been consciously inserted and claimed by their creators. As the artists are not there to testify, their choice is based on circumstantial historical proof or presumptions. They aim to assemble 250 works, after a rigorous selection process. Surprising echoes and similarities between them will be accentuated by a circuit divided into major themes such as composite images, hidden and reversible images, anthropomorphic landscapes, anamorphoses and perspective illusions, erotic ambiguities and even Rorschach’s ink blot tests.

A special place is given to Dalí, past master in the art of formulating different scenarios, both enigmatic and unpredictable, within the same image. Incidentally, it was under the name of one of Dali’s famous canvases, The Endless Enigma (1938) that a first version of the exhibition was presented in 2003 at the Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf.
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=30061


One image may hide another Arcimboldo – Dalí - Raetz National Galleries of the Grand Palais Une image peut en cacher une autre (In one image… another)

April 8 - July 6 2009
Exhibition
Les Galeries nationales du Grand Palais
In these visual encounters of another kind, discover the secrets concealed in paintings: "hidden images" haunt the works of artists from different periods and cultures, worked in either for fun or to deliver a moral, symbolic, religious, political or sexual message.
The exhibition presents a selection of 250 exemplary works that play on the seductive or mysterious power of composite, reversible and multiple images. From Arcimboldo to Dali, via more contemporary forms of expression, artists have for centuries deliberately created these double images. The exhibition, based on corroborated evidence and historically grounded assumptions, is organised around a number of major themes and offers visitors some fine surprises!
http://www.grandpalais.fr/en/News/Current_programme_in_full/p-468-Current_programme_in_full.htm

http://www.rmn.fr/One-image-may-hide-another


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