It doesn't hurt to ask

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Two days ago, I picked up a very nice art book called Master's of Deception: Escher, Dali & the Artists of Optical Illusion.

It features the work of many extremely talented illusory artists and at $19.95 Canadian it was an extremely reasonably priced book considering it is full colour and quite large. The problem was that the bottom edge of the book was dirtied and slightly damaged. I looked for another copy but could not find one. I asked at the cash if they had any undamaged copies and they found another, but it too suffered from the same imperfection.

I asked if another store had any copies. They did, but it was in worse shape then the ones I had in my hand - the cover was torn.

So I took the least damaged copy, they gave me a 20% damage discount (book is now non-returnable) and I got an additional 10% off because I'm an iRewards member. (Going online, I see I could have got an immaculate copy for pretty much the same price).

Being religious, I find this picture by Octavio Ocampo extremely powerful.

Image nabbed from here and rescaled to intensify the difference between the small and large image.

If you like illusory art, I definitely recommend this book.

The author's website is here. It contains additional materials that were not included in the book, as well as some movies of "impossible" and amazing art. Book cover (the first picture) picked up from authors website.

Comments

CG said…
I liked the website you linked; really clever stuff. My favourite was the seduction of lilies. Pity I can't afford the book at either 19.00 Canadian dollars or European euros or American dollars or anything...
June 07, 2008 4:35 AM
Richard said…
carra: the good thing is that you can see them on the web for free.

Mout of Flower was my alernate choice to post.

His pictures are amazing. They are lightyears ahead of Guiseppe Archimboldo's seminal works.
June 07, 2008 1:31 PM
Ancilla said…
hey richard...
i am here and trying to keep on doing that.

there are a lot of deceptive things in life. and the art is awesome. i can't understand how they can make something like that (like the religious one that you uploaded)
June 09, 2008 5:00 AM
B said…
I am on the fence with illusory art. Undeniably, it is impressive and I appreciate the talent. Sometimes it is just hit or miss as far as how it affects me. This is an impressive image. I'm glad you were able to get the book. That is very reasonable, even with minor damage.
June 09, 2008 7:18 PM
Richard said…
ancilla: I find it hard enough trying to draw something, never mind mixing 2 or more realities together. I think it is a wonderful talent / skill. There are many other types of illusions in the book as well.

breal: as with any art, you either like it / get it or you don't. I like the art shown in the book because it really makes my mind stretch.

I showed them to the kids over the weekend and the were amazed by them too (although Jason was a little too hyper-literal with some impossible paintings - in particular a painting of two children doing a large jigsaw puzzle. On closer inspection, you could see the second child was actually in the jigsaw puzzle and that there were more children in the puzzle carrying pieces to finish the puzzle).
June 10, 2008 12:10 PM
CG said…
Mouth of flower very clever I liked it too.
June 15, 2008 9:49 AM
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