This colorful, lively, and endlessly entertaining book for children looks at artistic illusion showing that art history is rife with tricksters.

If seeing is believing, then artists might be the biggest liars of all. Painters, sculptors, and photographers often try to convince their audiences that the paint is wet; the fruit is real; the window is open; the figure’s eyes are following you around the room. This fun and informative book takes young readers on a thematic tour of art as illusion. From the Parthenon through examples from nearly every major movement and culture, vibrant works of art are revealed to contain visual tricks, puns, hidden clues and just plain deceit. Seurat’s pointillism, da Vinci’s mysterious Mona Lisa, Magritte’s playful paintings-within-paintings, and Duane Hanson’s eerily realistic statues are all explored in detail to discuss the techniques, styles, use of perspective and composition that implore us to look at them again and again. Filled with ideas for do-ityourself optical projects, each chapter focuses on a theme such as color, hidden pictures, and surrealism. Designed with the curious eye in mind, this book will introduce young readers to beguiling works of art with fresh insight and a new way of appreciating some of the world’s most important works of art.