Impossible Figures

Abstract

Some pictures are called impossible figures because the solid objects to which they allude could not be constructed. Impossible worlds can be drawn by manipulating the rules of perspective. These are not, of course, ‘impossible objects’ (as they have been called at times) but perfectly possible pictures. Pictures provide us with allusions to objects, and tricks can be played with the reduction from three to two dimensions. The rules of linear perspective provide a consistent way of treating the spatial dimension that the picture itself lacks – depth or distance . When three dimensions are reduced to two it is possible to create worlds on paper that could not exist in three-dimensional space . Artists and scientists have revelled in the licence provided by representing the impossible.