Visual illusions, their causes, characteristics and applications
Matthew Luckiesh's 1922 study of optical illusions, published in New York by D. Van Nostrand Company and drawn from University of California Libraries holdings, is a scientific treatise on perception aimed at researchers and students. Its pictures are plain black-line diagrams: a receding row of pillars and rays that build a strong one-point perspective, paired crossed-line figures that flip between readings, and a grey relief portrait in profile. A designer could take from them the power of converging lines to suggest depth and the ambiguity of simple crossings as a graphic device.
