Dummy boards

The trompe-l’oeil’s height

Woman with broom, 1640
(Image: Wikipedia)

Not long ago we talked about trompe-l’oeils (if you missed it, click here). You sure were taken aback by the tricks between illusion and reality done by the artists. In any case, they were not still satisfied with the results and they kept researching.

Trompe-l’oeils had an issue: they did not admit human figures. No matter how realistic and precise they painted anybody, the effect was not the same (as in “Escaping Criticism” by Borrel del Caso). It still is an ironic and ambiguous game, but we know that person is immobile and flat, or in other words, a painting. And how could we deceive the viewer? With a chantourné.

Chantourné is the name given to the fretsaw technique on wood. And by extension, it also names the figures cut in wood, used as decoration in opera and theatre, the also known as dummy boards. In XVII century, they appear brought by Dutch painters, and somehow, they start to be used as decoration in English palaces and then in USA. They are painted in oil on wood, in natural scale, in a realistic way, and show from servants to ladies, soldiers or members of nobility. The borders could be chamfered, to give a sensation of three-dimensionality. Its reverse used to be painted black or left unpainted. 

(Image: Christie's)

They had to be put close to the wall so that their shadow would not distort and the effect would be more convictive. They took up aisles and stairways to surprise hosts; in summer they would be placed in front of chimneys. They could also serve as a trap for thieves when palaces would be unoccupied. But this is just a theory: maybe they were just a decoration with a slight tint of humor. In XIX century they were used for the first time as support for street signs.

Gysbrechts, Easel with fruits,
1670 (Image: Statens Museum for Kunst
Denmark)

Gysbrechts, the master of trompe-l’oeil, also had his own dummy board: his easel. It’s painted on a wood in extreme realism, and then the image is cut along its border. He was painter of the Danish King Christian V’s Court and was aimed for his Cabinet of Curiosities.

We could say Gysbrechts invented the irregular format painting. Frank Stella did not deliver anything new. Artists choose the canvas’ shape and size and then we paint on it; he, instead, paints his easel in real scale on a wood and then cuts around to give his work a definite shape. The support’s shape does not condition what he paints, what he paints determines the painting’s shape.

Take into account that the upside down painting reappears, which we already talked about in the previous article. In fact, both works are in the National Gallery of Denmark and are exhibited together, along with the “Reverse of a framed painting” placed on the floor, by the fake easel.

If “Reverse of a framed painting” proposed the fiction of painting, with the fake easel’s chantourné and its brushes and palette he takes us even farther. He shows the reverse of a canvas and a painting in process. Is it the same painting? Or is it just two faces of the same work? What did he paint on the canvas on the floor?

Pig eating from a bowl, 1750
(Image: Victoria & Albert Museum)

This same questions were posed by Magritte in her The Human Condition, which wealready talked about back then.

(If you ever find any of these dummies holding a sign, send me a picture!)

Stella, Hagamatana II, 1967

Fuentes: Dars, C. Images of Deception. Oxford, Phaidon, 1979

Graham, C. Dummy boards and chimmey boards. Oxford, Shire Publications, 1998

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