Optical Illusions: What's wrong with this picture?

This painting by Flemish artist Jos de Mey (1928 - 2007) is titled Melancholy Tunes on a Flemish Winter's Day. What's wrong with this picture? Look at it carefully and see if you can tell what optical illusion is taking place here.

Look at the brick wall above the man's head: it looks flat within the picture, as if it is a specific distance away from the viewer. The arches look that way too, until one looks at the tops of the columns that connect with the arches. Then we begin to see some perspective, as the far left column is clearly in the foreground, the man is sitting on a low wall which recedes into the background, where the middle column is clearly behind him. Then if you look at the bottom of the right column, it appears to be closer to the viewer again, just slightly closer than the middle column. This is impossible in relation to the flat brick wall above! The artist Jos de Mey has succeeded in painting an optical illusion, completely distorting our sense of how this architectural structure truly fits within this picture!

The tree also presents an optical impossibility: look at the branches at the top left: they are in front of the brick wall, which means they must be in front of the far left column. But the left column appears closer to us than the branches, and is clearly closer to us than the trunk of the tree.

Are there any art history students here reading this now? Can you tell us one more thing that's wrong with this picture? This figure, the musician, is not an original character created by Jos de Mey ... scroll down to see more on this.

optical illusion painting titled Melancholy Tunes on A Winter Day by Jos de Mey

The painting below is titled The Peasant Dance from 1568 and was painted by Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel. See how Jos de Mey has selected this one character (highlighted at right to show you the one figure chosen) and pulled him out of Bruegel's scene and placed him into this new, optical illusion painting?

painting by Pieter Bruegel titled The Peasant Dance from c. 1568

We are unable to determine exactly why Jos de Mey used Bruegel's character in this painting - it seems the use of other artists' figures was a common practice for de Mey, as he also used characters painted by Rene Magritte and M. C. Escher in addition to Bruegel. The only somewhat obvious connection for Bruegel might be that de Mey, as a Flemish artist of the 20th century, was paying homage to an earlier Flemish artist, Bruegel, from the 16th century.