People often see hidden faces in things. Depending on the circumstances, this is referred to as

pareidolia Pareidolia (; ) is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus (physiology), stimulus, usually visual, so that one detects an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none. Pareidolia is a specific bu ...

, the perception or recognition of a specific pattern or form in something essentially different. It is thus also a kind of

optical illusion In visual perception, an optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual perception, percept that arguably appears to differ from reality. Illusions come in a wide varie ...

. When an artist notices that two different things have a similar appearance, and draws or paints a picture making this similarity evident, they make images with double meanings. Many of these images are hidden faces or hidden skulls. These illusionistic pictures present the viewer with a mental choice of two interpretations: head or landscape, head or objects, head or architecture, etc. Both of them are valid, but the viewer sees only one of them, and very often they cannot see both interpretations simultaneously. NeptunesGrottoOrganPlayer

Chance images

There are everyday examples of hidden faces, they are "chance images" including faces in the clouds, figures of the

Rorschach Test The Rorschach test is a projective test, projective psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychology, psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists u ...

and the

Man in the Moon In many cultures, several pareidolic images of a human face, head or body are recognized in the disc of the full moon; they are generally known as the Man in the Moon. The images are based on the appearance of the dark areas (known as lunar m ...

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...

wrote about them in his notebook: "If you look at walls that are stained or made of different kinds of stones you can think you see in them certain picturesque views of mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, broad valleys, and hills of different shapes. You can also find in them battles and rapidly moving figures, strange faces and costumes, as well as an infinite number of things." Francois and Jean Robert collected and published a lot of photos of "chance faces".

Hidden faces created by artists

The Mannerist master at the 16th-century imperial Habsburg courts of Vienna and Prague,

Giuseppe Arcimboldo Giuseppe Arcimboldo, also spelled Arcimboldi (; 5 April 1527 – 11 July 1593), was an Italian Renaissance painter best known for creating imaginative portrait Human head, heads made entirely of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish ...

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

was probably the best known artist for creating extraordinary hidden faces. He arranged flowers, vegetables, fruits, shells, scallops and other animals, books and different things on the canvas in such a way that the whole collection of objects formed a portrait. His series of The Four Seasons seems to be the first use of this approach and technique. Arcimboldo's composite heads were celebrated and imitated by his contemporaries but they were relatively forgotten until participants in the twentieth-century art movements rediscovered them, bringing them to the attention of art historians. He is considered as forerunner of

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

and

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

. Some other famous

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

and

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

artists created hidden faces: *

Tobias Stimmer Tobias Stimmer (7 April 1539 – 4 January 1584In the old style.) was a Switzerland, Swiss painter and illustrator. His most famous work is the paintings on the Strasbourg astronomical clock. Biography He was born in Schaffhausen, and was a ...

Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein the Younger ( , ; ; – between 7 October and 29 November 1543) was a German-Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He ...

Matthäus Merian Matthäus is a given name or surname. Notable people with the name include: ;Surname * Lothar Matthäus, (born 1961), German former football player and manager ;Given name * Matthäus Aurogallus, Professor of Hebrew at the University of Wittenberg ...

Maria Sibylla Merian Maria Sibylla Merian (2 April 164713 January 1717) was a German Entomology, entomologist, naturalist and scientific illustrator. She was one of the earliest European naturalists to document observations about insects directly. Merian was a desce ...

Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, Marc Gerard and Marcus Garret (c. 1520 – c. 1590) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman, print designer and etcher who was active in his native Flanders and in England. He practised in many genres, including portrait ...

Wenzel Hollar Wenceslaus Hollar (23 July 1607 – 25 March 1677) was a prolific and accomplished Bohemian graphic artist of the 17th century, who spent much of his life in England. He is known to German speakers as ; and to Czech speakers as (). He is partic ...

* Josse de Momper

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...

was fascinated by the technique of Arcimboldo and his paranoia-critical method was influenced by the

Mannerist Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it ...

painter. For Dalí the Arcimboldo effect was a form of self concealment as well as this exhibitionist painter seemed, all throughout his life of constant posturing, to hide his

real self The true self (also known as real self, authentic self, original self and vulnerable self) and the false self (also known as fake self, idealized self, superficial self and pseudo self) are a psychological dualism conceptualized by English psycho ...

behind the gaudy externals of his behaviour. Larvatus prodeo, "I wear a mask," he could have said with Descartes and he used this quotation from the French philosopher for the epigraph of his novel ''Hidden Faces''. Probably his most famous "hidden face" is

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

in his oil painting: " Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire". Other

Surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

painters rediscovered the technique of hidden faces in the first part of 20th century: *

Max Ernst Max Ernst (; 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic trai ...

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgium, Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature ...

Istvan Orosz tries to combine the technique of

anamorphosis Anamorphosis is a distorted projection that requires the viewer to occupy a specific vantage point, use special devices, or both to view a recognizable image. It is used in painting, photography, sculpture and installation, toys, and film speci ...

with the hidden faces. Anamorphosis is used for those works of art that were made as distorted and unrecognizable through clever geometrical constructions. But when viewed from a certain point, or through a reflecting object placed upon it, the hidden image appears in its true shape, that is, it goes through retransformation. Orosz made experiments with anamorphoses not only in resurrecting the old technique but to improve and develop it. Instead of having a meaningless distorted image, his intent is to bring sense to the basic anamorphic picture, giving it meaning in itself with its second reading being revealed by viewing it from a different viewpoint such as looking at it through a special mirror. The ambiguous layers coming up by this approach make use of the connection or contrast of the two images within the same picture being independent from each other. There are many other contemporary works using hidden faces: *

Shigeo Fukuda was a sculptor, medallist, graphic artist and poster designer who created optical illusions. He is one of Japan's most well-known post-war graphic designers. He is known to be an environmentalist and anti-war, for he designed posters on thes ...

* Octavio Ocampo *

Sandro del Prete Sandro Del-Prete (born 1937) is a Swiss artist who creates illusionary and surrealistic paintings. His style has been compared to M. C. Escher, though it lacks the latter's mathematical precision. Biography Del-Prete was born in Bern, Switzerlan ...

Vertumnus årstidernas gud målad av Giuseppe Arcimboldo 1591 - Skoklosters slott - 91503.jpg,

: ''Vertumnus'', a portrait of

Rudolf II Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). He was a member of the H ...

(1590 -1591) Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Reversible Head with Basket of Fruit, c. 1590, oil on panel.jpg, ''Reversible Head with Basket of Fruit'', oil on panel painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, c. 1590 Bibliotekarien konserverad - Skoklosters slott - 97136.tif, Giuseppe Arcimboldo: '' The Librarian'', c. 1566 Stimmer.jpg,

: Hidden Portrait of the Pope (1577) Allisvanity.jpg, "''All is Vanity''" by C. Allan Gilbert. Life, death, and meaning of existence are intertwined Wenceslas Hollar - Landscape shaped like a face (State 1).jpg,

(1607-1677): Landscape

Literature

The pioneering study on the matter is an academic dissertation, unpublished to this day: Anita Joplin, ''The Anthropomorphic Landscape: A Study in 16th Century Imagery'' (unpublished thesis, Reed College), 1974.

On anthropomorphic landscapes

* Fernand Hallyn, "Le paysage anthropomorphe", Yves Giraud (ed.), ''Le Paysage à la Renaissance'', Fribourg: Editions universitaires de Fribourg, 1988, pp. 43 ss. * Michel Weemans & Jean-Hubert Martin (eds.), ''Le paysage anthropomorphe à la Renaissance'' (international conference proceedings, 2009), Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, (awatiting publication). * Michel Weemans, "Herri met de Bles’s sleeping peddler: an exegetical and anthropomorphic landscape", ''The Art Bulletin'', Vol. 88, Iss. 3, pp. 459–481. * Andreas Hauser, « Andrea Mantegnas ‘Wolkenreiter’: Manifestationen von kunstloser Natur oder Ursprung von vexierbildhafter Kunst ? », Gerhart von Graevenitz, Stefan Rieger, Felix Thürlemann (eds.), ''Die Unvermeidlichkeit der Bilder'', Tübingen, 2001, pp. 147-172. * Omar Calabrese (2006): ''Artists' Self-Portraits'', (The book has a chapter on artists who hide self-portraits in their pictures: e.g. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, van Gogh, Munch, Dalí,

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...

, Velàzquez, Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Ingres, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gainsborough, Matisse, James Ensor, Egon Schiele, Frida Kahlo, Man Ray, Henry Moore, Robert Rauschenberg, Norman Rockwell, and Roy Lichtenstein.)

On crypto-images more broadly

* Walter Melion, Bret Rothstein, Michel Weemans (eds.), ''The Anthropomorphic Lens: Anthropomorphism, Microcosmism and Analogy in Early Modern Thought and Visual Arts'', Leiden: Brill, 2015. * Jean-Hubert Martin (ed.), ''Une image peut en cacher une autre - Arcimboldo, Dalí, Raetz'' (exhibition catalogue), Paris: Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, 2009. * Jean-Hubert Martin, Stephan Andreae (eds.), ''Das endlose Rätsel. Dalí und die Magier der Mehrdeutigkeit'' (exhibition catalogue, Düsseldorf, Museum Kunst Palast), Ostfildern-Ruit, 2003. * Dario Gamboni, ''Potential images: ambiguity and indeterminacy in modern art'', London: Reaktion, 2002. * Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, ''L'art de la tache: Introduction à la'' Nouvelle methode ''d'Alexander Cozens'', Paris: Éditions du Limon, 1990. * Jean-Didier Urbain, "La crypto-image ou le palimpseste iconique", ''Eidos'', 5, 1991, p. 1-16, et

On chance images

* Horst W. Janson, "The ‘Image made by Chance’ in Renaissance Thought", Millard Meiss (ed.), ''De Artibus opuscula XL. Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky'', New York, 1961, I, pp. 254– 266, II, pp. 87–88. * Horst Woldemar: "Chance Images", in: ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas'', ed. Philip P. Wiener, vol. 1, New York 1973, pp. 340-353.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hidden Faces Optical illusions Optical phenomena Artistic techniques Pareidolia