Optical illusion leaves Eiffel Tower teetering over ravine

Paris, May 20

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An art installation has created the optical illusion that the French capital’s Eiffel Tower is perched precariously over a rocky ravine.

The artwork, by an artist who uses the pseudonym JR, involved laying an image of a ravine, and the pillars that form the base of the Eiffel Tower, onto the floor of an esplanade that overlooks the tower.

When a visitor stands in the right spot, the artwork in the foreground and the tower in the background line up with each other, and the illusion is created.

“I think it’s really cool because it’s really realistic,” said one visitor, Lara Watson.

“I like that it combines with the Eiffel Tower, so the piece of art becomes a piece of art because of the Eiffel Tower already behind it.”

Other work by the same artist includes an installation at the U.S-Mexico border wall that appears to show a giant baby peering over the wall, and an optical illusion that made it appear a chasm had opened up in the courtyard of the Louvre museum in Paris. Reuters