A trick to your eye

Gysbrechts, Reverse of a framed painting, 1670

Actually, if we were strict, every painting is an optical illusion, a trick to the eye. What is a still life other than a flat painted surface? 

Harnett, Still Life with violin and music,
1888 (Image: Wikipedia)

A painter’s task is trying to deceive you and to make you believe that the painting is real and three-dimensional… when it only is two-dimensional. It’s also true that you only believe it for a little while: artist and viewer share an unspoken agreement in which the painting is somehow real. And you sure will end up saying “This looks like a picture!”. Truth is, nowadays we are so conditioned by images that they have taken over our perception of reality.

Even if every painting is an optical illusion (and even more in the cases of anamorphosis, oculi, domes...), there is a subgenre called “trompe-l’œil”, of which we are going to talk today. In french, it stands for “Deceive the eye”. It describes all the paintings that try to deceive us, trying to show as real things that aren’t. For example: a fake marble, a painted door where there is none, etc. Every figurative painting is an imitation of reality, but a “trompe-l’œil” poses a doubt about that reality. It’s a game that involves the believes of the viewer and the trick to the sight. (Is it as real as my fingers would feel it?)

Peruzzi, Sala della Prospettiva,
V. Farnesina, 1518

It appears in all the ancient cultures and it’s linked to an architectonic space, for example in Rome. In Renaissance it becomes established, and it lasts until today. We’ve already talked about Mantegna, Giotto, Pozzo, Correggio, da Cortona… As subgenre it was born during the Baroque period, not as mural, though, but as a painting independent of the wall.

van Eyck, Dyptich of the Annunciation, 1535

So that we might get deceived, the realism found in what is represented should be tremendously precise and the scale should keep the proportions of the actual object. Perspective must also match with the viewer’s vanishing point and light and shadows should also coincide with it.

Bejarano, Trompe-l'oeil,
XVIII c.

There are several topics. When they are linked to special architecture, they usually are imitations of niches with their statues, fake frames, but in case of paintings, the most common topic is the one of panels with papers, letters and envelopes. 






And if we talk about imitating papers, why would we not hang a frame with a dollar? Well, Warhol did this same thing some years later. There is nothing new under the sun.

Dubreuil, Five Dollars Bill, 1891

Borrel del Caso, Escaping
Criticism, 1874 (Image:
Wikipedia)

Some artists have specialized in this kind of painting: Cornelis Gysbrechts (1657-1675). Undoubtedly, his most fascinating example is “Reverse of a framed painting” which shows us that what is painted is just fiction; if we turn a painting around, we’d find what is actual real: the reverse. How many contemporary artists have done the same? There is nothing new under the sun.

In Spanish Baroque, we have the works of Pedro de Acosta, Vicente de Vitoria, Diego Berajano, and even Murillo. We can mention Peto, Peale, Dubreuil or Harnett out the XIX century. Clearly, Pere Borrel del Caso’s “Escaping criticism” is the most famous trompe-l’œil. The figures on it are running away from art critics!

Around 1960, the Trompe-l’œil Movement appeared in France (or “Peintres de la Réalité”), in which Henri Cadiou and Pierre Gilou, among others, defended realistic painting. This movement is still alive in nowadays’ Hyperrealism. It’s also a technique commonly used by graffiti artists (Banksy).

A trompe-l’œil will always be a trick in which the artist, relying on the contraposition between “reality” and “illusion/appearance”, attempts to surprise us.

And this makes me wonder... is this virtual reality we live with nowadays a contemporary trompe-l’œil?

Brizé, Documents on the wall, 1656 (Image: Wikipedia)

Sources: Baudrillard, J.-Calabrese, O. El trompe-l’oeil. Madrid, Casimiro, 2014;

 Cadiou, H.-Gilou, P. La peinture en trompe-l’œil, Paris, Lethielleux,1995;

Stoichita, V. La invención del cuadro, Barcelona. Ed. Del Serbal, 2000

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