Muhammad Umair Khan

Trompe L’oeil Art Trompe l’oeil is French for “to deceive the eye”, an art historical tradition in which the artist fools us into thinking we’re looking at the real thing. Whether it’s a painted fly that we’re tempted to brush away, or an illusionistic piece of paper with curling edges that entices us to pick it up, trompe l’oeil makes us question the boundary between the painted world and ours. The earliest account of trompe l’oeil comes from ancient Greece, where a contest took place between two prominent artists, Zeuxis and Parrhasius. The story goes that Zeuxis painted grapes with such skill that birds flew down to peck at them. Not wanting to be outdone, Parrhasius painted an illusionistic curtain that fooled even the discerning eye of his fellow-painter, who tried to draw it to one side. This famous anecdote was repeated in later art treatises, encouraging artists to emulate their classical predecessors. The concept caught on and by the Renaissance, artists had a new tool at their disposal to deceive the viewer’s eye: perspective. In architecture in particular, trompe l’oeil moved onto an evergrander scale with decorated ceilings that conjured up the illusion of infinite space – the ultimate test of a master’s skill. In some cases, buildings appear to continue upwards to great heights, while in others the heavens themselves seem to open up. As an example, the still-life paintings of John F. Peto are notable not only for their sophisticated qualities of formal design and precise recording of the appearance and textures of the things they depict, but also for their psychological complexity. For the Track, one of his most accomplished late works, presents an array of worn and well-used objects connected with horse racing. Against a dark green painted door are displayed a red jockey's cap, a riding crop, a spur, a thinned and bent horseshoe, betting stubs, a racetrack announcement, a tattered image of a dark horse, and various fragments of torn paper, such as the illegible newspaper clipping at the top right. At the bottom, a dark blue envelope or piece of paper seems to have fallen and become lodged between canvas and frame, enhancing the sense of illusion. The worn surfaces, broken and rusty hinges, bent nails, and torn bits of paper all resonate with a sense of the past, the forgotten, and the discarded. The races have been run, bets have been won or lost, and the rider's equipment—or, at least, these few bits of it—has been hung up, perhaps for good. But the abstract power of Peto's composition and the sheer visual beauty of his bold colors counteract any sense of somber nostalgia, animating the painting with a remarkable aesthetic vitality. Another notable name, Christoffel Pierson was one of the first artists to specialize in illusory images of hunting gear. Hunting was a popular activity for Dutch nobility throughout the seventeenth century. The Hague, where the Princes of Orange had their courtly residence and where the States General convened, became the center of a growing culture of hunting that spawned this new genre of painting around mid-century. Pierson, who painted a number of trompe l'oeil hunting pieces with falconry elements, emphasized three-dimensional effects with illusionistically painted frames and niches. In Niche with Falconry Gear, Pierson has arranged various pieces of hunting equipment in and around a wooden-framed niche set into a white stucco wall. In the arched niche he has placed a hunting horn, a net, a bow and arrow, and a small birdcage surmounted by a falcon's hood with a red plume. Two different types of whistles hang from the cage. A powder bag and powder horn are suspended to the left of the niche, and a shoulder bag hangs to the right. His strong contrasts of light and shade enliven the image and strengthen the sense that bright daylight floods the scene.