The Railway Bridge Optical Illusion

Here is a wonderful piece of optical illusion art created by Swiss artist Sandro Del Prete. The drawing below is titled "The Railway Bridge." What do you think will these trains collide?

The Railway Bridge Optical Illusion

The following is from an article in The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, Volume 78, October 2000.

Sandro Del-Prete was born in 1937 and went to school in Freiburg, Germany, where he obtained a diploma in commercial subjects. Drawing and painting have been his favourite hobbies since childhood, and so he spent six months in Florence, Italy, where he attended the Academy of Art. His wife Yolanda always supports him in his artistic work, and both create a charming couple; staying with them remains an unforgettable experience. Sandro Del-Prete'’s pictures are not artificial stimuli as found in books about the psychology of perception. They are works of art lovingly constructed down to the last detail. He calls his pictures "“illusorisms"”, meaning that they can be drawn, but they cannot be constructed or transformed into the world in which we live. Moreover, initially a lay observer sees every thing as normal; however, it is only after a deeper observation that he perceives that nothing can exist in reality. Del-Prete, in a genius manner, materializes the well-known psychological effect, of the difference between "“looking"” (usually the first glance of an observer) and "“seeing"” (the second glance) when things are appreciated more thoroughly in the mind. It is this specific sensation which gives his works of art the so-called "“added value"”.

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