Termesphere of the Adams House Video

This is illusion pretty cool in my opinion. Artist Dick Termes painted a sphere with a unique “six-point” perspective technique that results with a pretty neat optical illusion. Attached below, you may find the video clip. As you watch it, try to imagine that the front half of the sphere is transparent, and instead, that the mural is painted on the inside of the sphere. Once you do that, the spin will seem to reverse direction and you’ll find yourself inside of the painting. Reflecting Back is a 17″ diameter sphere that was painted in 1989. As Deadwood is very close to where Termes lives much of this painting was done on the spot in the Adams House. This house is now owned by the city of Deadwood South Dakota. This is a wonderful spherical painting to show the six point perspective which Termes is known for.

As a bonus, there is a ghost image of Mr. Adams. You can see him shown looking in the window and Mary Adams is standing in the dining room. Termes’ image shows in the two mirrors. It is as though you are standing in the living room and turning in a circle seeing everything around you as well as above and below you. You can find more similar videos and Termespheres on Dick Termes website.

Concerning the Mighty Illusions – I just came home from my summer vacation. This will result in more regular updates, new improvements and more illusion-related stuff for you! Keep visiting the site for big news soon! Also, those of you running Blogger blogs, you can now add Optical Illusion of The Day Google gadget to your blog. Blogger announced that you can now add gadgets automatically via Layouts – Gadgets tab. Please comment if you found our illusion gadget. Post the link inside the comments, and those of you who implemented it successfully, email me so I can mention your blogs in my new posts! This will bring nice amount of visitors your way!

19 Replies to “Termesphere of the Adams House Video”

  1. Fantastic! :) This really reminds me of the Spinning Man & Spinning Girl illusions with regards to the apparent change in direction, although in this one I have to 'create' the illusion in my mind to see it. With the Spinning Man & Girl, the direction changes whether I want it to or not and so far there ain't nothing I can do about it! I love them! Keep 'em coming! :) Peace x

  2. I got it to look like the picture is on the inside etc, but it does’nt seem to change direction. It still looks pretty cool, though!

  3. The illusion is much easier to see when you are looking at an actual Termessphere, and some seem to work better than others.

    Dick is an incredible artist and the perspective systems Termes uses are truly mind boggling.

  4. Cool. I had to focus hard to get to ‘spin the other way’ Kept losing it and getting it back. Really made it easy once he panned in.

  5. It does take some time to see the reversing. I found it when looking at the back of the room. It was also when it was close up.

  6. haha i didn’t understand it at first, for a minute i was thinking “this is crazy”, then it clicked :) it’s like looking at those cubes that just have 12 lines like the outline of a box, you can switch with your eyes which side is the front and which is the back, actually changing the direction the box is facing while doing so. amazing, my favorite illusion so far :)

  7. I found it very difficult to “see” the ball turning in the reverse direction, but I was able to do it after a while. Try focusing on looking deep into the rooms as the globe spins, that’s how I was best able to see it.

  8. WOW. Yah at first I was totally confused and I almost gave up. But what I did was when the doors came into view, I looked really deep into them, like I was focused on seeing what was inside of them instead of the other surroundings. Then the sphere turned concave and began “turning in the other direction.” Amazing. My favorite illusion on the site, no doubt.

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