Trompe-l'œil (French for "trick the eye") is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects really exist.
As far back as the 5th century B.C., Trompe-l’oeil was employed in ancient Greece by Zeuxis on a still life painting so convincing, that birds flew down from the sky to peck at the painted grapes.
Vitruvius states in his book that the artist Agatharhus painted a scene for the acting of a tragedy by Aeschylus - possibly Orestias – in a perspective and style that was later to be known as “optical deception”. A refined and masterful art, “Trompe-l’oeil”, left its mark at the famous house of the Faunes at Pompeii, where the architectural vistas depicted on illusionistic frescoes looked real. Today, Trompe-l’oeil is making a strong come-back. The successful international exhibition “LE TRIOMPHE DU TROMPE - L'OEIL” covering a period from the 1st to the 20th century, at the Grand Palais in Paris in November 1993 – where I participated myself – featuring the works of Giotto, Veronese, Mantegna, Botticelli, Raphael, Holbein, Michel-Ange, Magritte, Pierre Roy, Cadiou and more, marked and sealed the merit and success of the technique.
It was first introduced in Europe and the USA. It first appeared in France during the 17th century. The artists, diehard fans of “Trompe-l’oeil”, continue untiringly to trick the eyes of their audience. They have expanded their visual vocabulary. For example they have concocted awkwardly arranged objects and fruit, wrapped, torn or folded papers in disarray, a mask, a skull flanked by weights placed in the center or at the corner of the canvas, an etching placed inside a “frame” and under a broken glass creating a three-dimensional illusion. As the centuries pass, Trompe-l’oeil as a decorative art intervention allows fake marble or impressive fake wood as a background to still life. Renowned artists have created works of great value throughout Europe: Zeuxis, Agatharhus and Parrhasios in ancient Athens, Giotto, Botticelli, Veronese, Gisbrechts and Oudry in Rome, the 20th-century surrealists such as Magritte, Tanguy, Pierre Roy and more recently Henri Cadiou (1906), Jacques Poirier (1928) and Intini (1921) in France.
With the use of Trompe-l’oeil in my works I attempt to fool the eye of the viewer into perceiving that the painted details are real objects. With the newspapers, magazines and objects depicted on my canvas I attempt to express the things that I feel, see, hear and believe. In other words, everything that takes place around us, instances and experiences of our bizarre and incontrollable lives. The painting of newspapers and magazines, detailing the headlines, articles, photos and in general the entire presentation adopted in a particular style in my work is entirely of my own inspiration.
Trompe-l'œil (French for "trick the eye") is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects really exist.