Thursday, May 4, 2017

Black and White Illusions

Many sidewalks and plazas in our area of Lisbon are paved with varying patterns of small black and white tiles.


Down our street, for example, a few address numbers are laid in the stones. We've also seen geometric designs, writing and flowers.

But the most mind-boggling arrangement we've seen were the tiles today at the Praça Dom Pedro IV, a flat surface visually contorted to hills and gulleys by the trompe-l'oeil layout of the individual light and dark pieces.





These photographs only capture a tiny part of the illusion of up and down space. To look at our feet while walking was highly disorienting! I felt like I should be stepping higher for the ridges, deeper for troughs -- and so worried about my miscalculations leading to tripping!

And seriously, this is a super flat surface. And looked at from specific angles, that is clear.



Flat!!!


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