Trompe-lœil (French for deceive the eye) is an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions. Forced perspective is a comparable illusion in architecture. History in Painting. Though the phrase, which can also be spelled without the hyphen and ligature in English as trompe loeil, originates in theBaroque period, when it refers to perspectival illusionism, trompe-lœil dates much further back. It was (and is) often employed in murals. Instances from Greek and Roman times are known, for instance in Pompeii. A typical trompe-lœil mural might depict a window, door, or hallway, intended to suggest a larger room. A version of an oft-told ancient Greek story concerns a contest between two renowned painters. Zeuxis (born around 464 BC) produced a still life painting so convincing that birds flew down to peck at the painted grapes. A rival, Parrhasius, asked Zeuxis to judge one of his paintings that was behind a pair of tattered curtains in his study. Parrhasius asked Zeuxis to pull back the curtains, but when Zeuxis tried, he could not, as the curtains were Parrhasiuss painting—making Parrhasius the winner. With the superior understanding of perspective drawing achieved in the Renaissance, Italian painters of the lateQuattrocento such as Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) and Melozzo da Forlì (1438–1494), began painting illusionistic ceiling paintings, generally in fresco, that employed perspective and techniques such as foreshortening to create the impression of greater space for the viewer below. This type of trompe lœil illusionism as specifically applied to ceiling paintings is known asdi sotto in sù, meaning from below, upward in Italian. The elements above the viewer are rendered as if viewed from true vanishing point perspective. Well-known examples are the Camera degli Sposi in Mantua and Antonio da Correggios (1489–1534) Assumption of the Virgin in the Duomo of Parma. Similarly, Vittorio Carpaccio (1460–1525) and Jacopo de Barbari (c. 1440 – before 1516) added small trompe-lœil features to their paintings, playfully exploring the boundary between image and reality. For example, a fly might appear to be sitting on the paintings frame, or a curtain might appear to partly conceal the painting, a piece of paper might appear to be attached to a board, or a person might appear to be climbing out of the painting altogether—all in reference to the contest of Zeuxis and Parrhasius. In a 1964 seminar, the psychoanalyst and theorist Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) observed that the myth of the two painters reveals an interesting aspect of human cognition. While animals are attracted to superficial appearances, humans are enticed by the idea of things that are hidden. Perspective theories in the 17th century allowed a more fully integrated approach to architectural illusion, which when used by painters to open up the space of a wall or ceiling is known as quadratura. Examples include Pietro da Cortonas Allegory of Divine Providence in the Palazzo Barberini and Andrea Pozzos Apotheosis of St Ignatius on the ceiling of the Roman church of SantIgnazio. The mannerist and Baroque style interiors of Jesuit churches in the 16th and 17th century often included such trompe-lœil ceiling paintings, which optically open the ceiling or dome to the heavens with a depiction of Jesus, Marys, or a saints ascension or assumption. An example of a perfect architectural trompe-lœil is the illusionistic dome in the Jesuit church, Vienna, by Andrea Pozzo, which is only slightly curved but gives the impression of true architecture. Trompe-lœil paintings became very popular in Flemish and Dutch painting in the 17th century arising from the development of still life painting. The Flemish painter Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts created a chantourné painting (chantourné literally means cutout and refers to a trompe lœil representation designed to stand away from a wall) showing an easel holding a painting. The Dutch painter Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten was a master of the trompe-lœil and theorized on the role of art as the lifelike imitation of nature in his book the Introduction to the Academy of Painting, or the Visible World (Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: anders de zichtbaere werelt) (1678). A fanciful form of architectural trompe-lœil, quodlibet, features realistically rendered paintings of such items as paper knives, playing cards, ribbons, and scissors, apparently accidentally left lying around. Trompe-lœil can also be found painted on tables and other items of furniture, on which, for example, a deck of playing cards might appear to be sitting on the table. A particularly impressive example can be seen at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, where one of the internal doors appears to have a violin and bow suspended from it, in a trompe lœil painted around 1723 by Jan van der Vaart. The American 19th-century still-life painter William Harnett specialized in trompe-lœil. In the 20th century, from the 1960s on, the American Richard Haas and many others painted large trompe-lœil murals on the sides of city buildings, and from beginning of the 1980s when German Artist Rainer Maria Latzke began to combine classical fresco art with contemporary content trompe-lœil became increasingly popular for interior murals. The Spanish painter Salvador Dalí utilized the technique for a number of his paintings. In other art forms Trompe-lœil, in the form of forced perspective, has long been used in stage-theater set design, so as to create the illusion of a much deeper space than the actual stage. A famous early example is the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, with Vincenzo Scamozzis seven forced-perspective streets (1585), which appear to recede into the distance. Trompe-lœil is employed in Donald OConnors famous Running up the wall scene in the film Singin in the Rain (1954). During the finale of his Make em Laugh number he first runs up a real wall. Then he runs towards what appears to be a hallway, but when he runs up this as well we realize that it is a large trompe-lœil mural. More recently, Roy Andersson has made use of similar techniques in his feature films. Another decedent of trompe-lœil is matte painting, a technique in film production where parts of a complicated scene are painted on glass panels that are mounted in front of the camera during shooting. This technique was common before the advent of computer-generated imagery. Fictional trompe-lœil appears in many Looney Tunes, such as the Road Runner cartoons, where, for example, Wile E. Coyote paints a tunnel on a rock wall, and the Road Runner then races through the fake tunnel. This is usually followed by the coyotes foolishly trying to run through the tunnel after the road runner, only to smash into the hard rock-face. This sight gag was employed in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Chicagos Near North Side, a 16-story 1929 apartment hotel converted into a 1981 apartment building, was used by Richard Haas for trompe-lœil murals in homage to Chicago school architecture. One of the buildings sides features the Chicago Board of Trade Building, intended as a reflection of the actual building two miles south. Trompe loeil, in the form of illusion painting, is also used in contemporary interior design, where illusionary wall paintings experienced a Renaissance since around 1980. Significant artists in this field are the German muralist Rainer Maria Latzke, who invented, in the 90s, a new method of producing illusion paintings, theFrescography and the English artist Graham Rust. Artists Old Masters • Masaccio • Luca Giordano • Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts • Charles Willson Peale • Andrea Pozzo • Vincenzo Scamozzi • Giovanni Battista Tiepolo 19th century and modern masters • Henry Alexander • Aaron Bohrod • Salvador Dalí • Walter Goodman • John Haberle • William Harnett • Claude Raguet Hirst • René Magritte • John F. Peto Contemporary • Ellen Altfest • Martin Battersby • Julian Beever • Daniela Benedini • Henri Cadiou • Piero Fornasetti • Ronald Francis • Frederic Gracia • Richard Haas • Rainer Maria Latzke • István Orosz (Utisz) • Os Gêmeos, The Twins • Jacques Poirier • Susan Powers • John Pugh • Pierre-Marie Rudelle • Graham Rust • Barbara Stadtlander • Anthony Waichulis • Kurt Wenner • Banksy Courtesy: fllac.vassar.edu/ - fllac.vassar.edu/ - artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/66042 - smk.dk/en/visit-the-museum/exhibitions/haim-steinbach/the-smk-artworks-in-the-exhibition/ - https://google/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/treasurers-papers-and-documents/6QHYhVe4-ReeGQ?projectId=art-project - nelson-atkins.org/collections/iscroll-objectview.cfm?id=30797 - philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/71982.html -
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 23:47:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015