Illusoriness

in visual art, an illusion of the sensual genuineness of the image. Illusoriness may be manifested in the seeming tangibility, corporeality, and volume of objects reproduced on a flat surface and in the three-dimensional, stereoscopic, and airy appearance of the space. The history of art provides many variants of the relationship between the illusory and nonillusory elements in a work of art. Illusoriness devoid of aesthetic sense and treated as an end in itself leads to the naturalistic copying of the visible world.