Final answer:
While the question refers to Maria Sibylla Merian, the answer focuses on other artists like Riley and Anuszkiewicz, who utilized Op Art techniques involving geometric shapes, lines, and textures to create optical illusions in their works. These techniques are distinct from Merian's naturalistic illustrations.
Step-by-step explanation:
Maria Sibylla Merian was a naturalist and scientific illustrator known for her detailed studies of insects and plants. Although the question refers to Merian, the provided reference does not correlate with Merian's work. Instead, it seems to address different artists and their methods. The referenced artists such as Riley and Anuszkiewicz focused on Op Art and its elements to engage the viewer's visual perception. They used elements like geometric shapes, lines, and texture to create illusionary effects and emphasize the two-dimensional nature of the canvas. Riley, for example, used a monochromatic color scheme and meticulously designed shapes to create movement and optical illusions, emphasizing visual shapes to excite retinal emotions, which is reflected in Op Art's significance in 1960s culture. Anuszkiewicz worked with patterns and parallel colored lines to form illusionary images, while artists like Mondrian used geometric shapes in composition. However, it should be noted that these descriptions do not pertain to Maria Sibylla Merian's artwork, which mainly focused on naturalistic depictions of flora and fauna.