Trompley (fr. trompe-l "œil," optical illusion ") is
technical technique in art, the purpose of which is to create an optical
the illusion that the depicted object is in three-dimensional space, while
time is actually drawn in a two-dimensional plane.
Escaping Criticism, Per Borrell del Caso, 1874
This technique was already used in ancient Greece and
Ancient Rome. A typical example of antique trompe l'oeuvre is a wall image of a window,
door or atrium to create the false effect that the room is larger than it is
There is.
One of the popular ancient Greek stories tells about
dispute between famous artists. Zeuxis created so real and
convincing pictures that birds flew in and pecked at painted grapes.
Zeuskis asked his opponent Parrhasius if he could throw
a tattered curtain from a painting to appreciate it. But I found that this
curtain drawn. So Zeuxis misled the birds, and Parrhasius led into
delusion of Zeuxis.
With an understanding of the laws of Italian perspective
painters of the late Quattrocento, like Andrea Mantegna and Melozzo da Forli, began
paint walls and vaults, mostly frescoes, using the laws of perspective
to create the effect of increasing space. This type of trompe l'oeil is known as di
sotto in sù, from top to next in Italian.
Ceiling frescoes by Andrea Mantegnave
Camera degli Sposi in Mantua's Palazzo Ducale
_____
Dome of the Jesuit Church in Vienna
artist Andrea Pozzo (1703)
_____
Marble bust with transparent veil, 20th century,
Bankfield Museum
_____
Reverse Side of a Painting, 1670, oil on
canvas, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.
_____
Louis Leopold Boilly (1761-1845), Grappe de raisin
en trompe l'oeil
_____
Edward Collier
_____
Paolo Veronese, 1560-1561
_____
Antonello da Messina, Salvator Mundi, 1465
“Ah, it’s not difficult to deceive me! ..
I myself am glad to be deceived!
A. Pushkin "Recognition"
In the history of European art, there are unusual paintings that stand apart from others and are called "trick" or "trompe" (French trompe-l";il, "illusion").
In appearance, a blende is just a kind of still life, but it is not difficult to distinguish it from a still life, too clearly the author of the blende is trying to pass off a man-made image (painting, drawing, fresco or mosaic) as a piece of the real world.
The use of both terms ("decoy" and "trompley") to refer to paintings of this genre is legitimate.
It is believed that snags are best viewed in the originals, since reproductions in magazines and books are unable to convey the fullness of sensations.
This is largely due to the fact that the desired "deception" effect is usually related to the size of the original and the distance between the image and the viewer.
Art criticism almost does not notice this genre, and tromples can be found with difficulty in the History of Art.
Many tromples, despite the fact that their main task was only to mislead the viewer, have undoubted artistic merit, especially noticeable in the halls of museums, where such compositions, of course, cannot deceive the viewer, but invariably arouse his sincere admiration.
The history of fake paintings goes back to Ancient Greece. The legend tells that in the 6th century BC there lived two outstanding artists Zeuxis from Heraclea and Parrhasius from Ephesus, who once argued who would paint the best picture.
The people gathered, the rivals came out, each in his hands a picture under a coverlet.
Zeuxis pulled back the coverlet - there was a bunch of grapes in the picture, so similar that the birds flocked to peck at it. The people applauded. “Now pull back the covers!” said Zeuxis to Parrhasius.
“I can’t,” answered Parrasius, “because the veil is painted.” Zeuxis bowed his head and said, “You have won! I deceived the eyes of the birds, and you deceived the eyes of the painter.
The invention of perspective, chiaroscuro, but especially ... oil paints, contributed to the spread of this kind of paintings already in modern times.
Recipes for their preparation were found in the books of the XIII century.
At the beginning of the 15th century, the great Dutch artist Jan van Eyck improved the technology of paint preparation so much that he is considered the inventor of oil painting.
He was the first to achieve in his works an exceptional depth and richness of color, as well as the subtlety of light and shade and color transitions.
After Jan van Eyck, artists were able to achieve such an image, which was not difficult to confuse with wildlife.
The heyday of trompley in Europe was the 17th century, and this applies primarily to Italy, Holland, Belgium, and France.
True, the famous painting by the Italian Jacopo de Barberi "Partridge and Iron Gloves" (1504, Alte Pinakothek, Munich) is considered to be the first after antiquity European snag, created back in the 16th century.
It already had all the signs of trompe-l'oeil - the virtuoso illusory manner of depiction (the feathers of a dead bird, the sparkling metal of a knight's glove), and, most importantly, the artist makes the viewer think - is it a two-dimensional painting in front of him or three-dimensional real objects?
After all, even a drawn piece of paper with the master's signature is so real that it seems to waver from our breath.
Outstanding creators of decoys in the 17th century were Rembrandt's student, the Dutchman Samuel van Hoogstraten, and the Flemish Cornelis Norbertus Geisbrecht, who became the court painter of the Danish king.
Masters of trickery used many tricks to make the viewer want to touch the objects presented in the picture.
They painted half-closed curtains, folded corners of sheets of paper, created the illusion of a sheet of paper attached to the wall, a nail driven in, and so on.
Fragments of objects and inscriptions hidden from view prompted a person to reach out to pull back the illusory curtain and see the object or read the entire phrase.
Masters skillfully used chiaroscuro, conveyed the brilliance of glass, metal, carefully wrote out the texture of objects, trying to make them tangibly real.
Because trompe-l's were basically made to mislead the viewer, they were sometimes not framed in order to look as natural as possible.
Carefully examining these paintings, the viewer was often "... happy to be deceived himself", admiring the skill and elegance of their execution.
The 17th-century genre of pictorial trickery turned out to be closely connected with art of various levels, emotionally uniting the virtuosic, but only curious tricks of Hoogstraten and Geisbrecht, for example, with the highest art of Pieter de Hooch and Vermeer of Delft.
In Russia, the most famous tromple player was the artist of the early 19th century, Count Fyodor Tolstoy. He was an honorary member of many European Art Academies.
It is even difficult to say what works first of all come to mind of an art lover at the mention of his name, but it was the fake paintings that “fed” the artist, which he often made to order, including for the empresses Maria Feodorovna and Elizabeth Alekseevna.
And in this art it is difficult for Fedor Tolstoy to find equals.
He repeated his famous watercolor “Berries of Red and White Currants” (1818) so many times that the artist himself said: “... one can honestly say that my family ate only currants.”
It should also be noted that the increased illusiveness inherent in trompleys, increasing the “material” reality, reduces the spatial reality.
The tricks tend to a strictly fixed point of view of the viewer. It is no coincidence that the ideal object of the image in such a still life is the wall and a sheet of paper attached to it or a tabletop with watercolors or engravings placed on it.
The viewer's gaze is directed perpendicular to the plane of the picture - horizontally or from top to bottom.
On the one hand, tromples may seem like a tribute to primitive naturalism or the so-called. "non-artistic" illusionism, demonstrating the skill of the artist and nothing more.
Here is just a wooden board or cabinet door, and on it are narrow strips of leather nailed with carnations, old printed letters, a comb, a quill, a knife for “sharpening” it, brooches, bows, scissors.
These images excite us, but at the same time irritate us with some kind of “boundary” sensations. Neither you picture, nor you reality.
In the very genre of decoy lies, as M. Bulgakov would say, "the exposure of all kinds of magic", the picture itself shows us how art deceives us.
In this case, it is the most ironic and at the same time the most virtuosic of the genres of European fine art.
On the other hand, trickery appears in art as a certain stage in the development of a fundamental idea of what art is.
Moreover, tricks as a genre are not just a stage, not just carefully, illusionistically drawn sets of objects; it is also embodied not in words, but in colors and lines, knowledge about the nature of art.
This is a kind of attempt to answer the tormenting question in the eternal dispute-dialogue between the artist and the viewer about where is the line separating the painted world, i.e. the world of art, from what we have agreed to call the world of reality. As a matter of fact, the main content of the fake pictures is this very line.
Such difficult thoughts are caused by seemingly simple paintings called "tricks", although, in fact, we are talking about perhaps the most truthful of all genres of painting.
→ Trompe-l'oeil panel and textured multi-layered surface
January 14, 2013
They are called the "three Provençal sisters" - the abbeys of Senanque, Torone and Sylvacane. Three monasteries, three pearls of Romanesque architecture in a precious necklace of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Only one of them still remains an active monastery of the Cistercian order - the Abbey of Senanque. Located in a narrow canyon, the monastery is a place of solitary prayer and reflection. The surroundings of the monastery are famous for their lavender fields, the monks grow lavender and keep an apiary.
Why this excursion? Attempts to find the image of Provence, to understand its soul, led me to the conclusion that one wonderful craftswoman made: Provence is texture and color . I made a panel on which I depicted such a collective image of the monastery gallery, and called it "View of the lavender fields from the gallery of the Abbey of Senanque". This is primarily an attempt to convey the texture and color of Provence, as I imagine them. Dark ocher and terracotta are the ocher quarries of Provence. The color of lavender is the lavender fields of Provence (although for me Provence is not only lavender!). Various shades of green - vineyards in the hills of Provence. The ocher-red foliage is the velvet autumn of Provence.
To make it clearer what exactly inspired me, I will allow myself to show two photographs of the abbey
Well, now I will try to show the process of creating a panel - you be the judge of what happened
1. Materials
Napkin motif - 1/2 napkin
Facade textured paint white
Acrylic paints - burnt sienna, natural sienna, Prussian blue, white, red, ocher, chromium oxide, natural umber
Blank - panel size 40 by 50 cm, frame - wooden
Gesso primer
Lacquer spray matte
Adhesive for napkins
Synthetic and squirrel brushes
masking tape
A few more words need to be said about what trompley . Literally translated, this means "deception of the eye." This is a set of tricks that create visual illusions. For example, on a flat surface - the creation of a three-dimensional image. In this way, you can expand the space of a small room, creating the illusion of a window or terrace. In my work, I tried, as far as I could, to create such a three-dimensional image - a gallery and a view of the lavender field. In trompley, it is very important to correctly apply the rules of artistic perspective.
So I had a halfnapkins
2. Step two
I draw the panel, marking the vanishing point (this is the place opposite which the viewer is), foreground and middle plan. Based on the location of the auxiliary lines, I outline the columns and tiles on the floor of the gallery. Yes, I almost forgot - I pre-primed the panel where the image will be
3. Step three
I erase all auxiliary lines with an eraser - this is the sketch that remains
4. Step Four
I stick a napkin in the place where I have two central arches. For ease of sticking, I tear the napkin in half
5. Step Five
I paint the sky over the napkin and draw the tiles on the floor. I stretch the napkin motif - I paint a landscape in two extreme arches, like on a napkin
6. Step six.
I seal the borders of the columns, arches and balustrade with masking tape
7. Step seven
I put facade textured paint on arches, columns, balustrade
8. Step eight
After the first layer of textured paint dries (I leave it overnight), I re-glue the facade and the base of the columns with masking tape and apply the second layer of facade paint in accordance with the architecture of the columns - this is how I want to enhance the feeling of a three-dimensional image
Added volume
9. Step nine
Now I’m starting to work with paints - there’s nothing special to comment on here, I’ll just show you photos
I add shadows, highlight the columns and arches. I depict the shadows from the columns on the tiled floor
Adding a brown tone to the tiles on the floor
I depict the exposed laying of columns, cracks in the plaster
On the columns, I want to draw some kind of climbing plant - for example, ivy. I outline the whips of ivy - I work with a squirrel thin brush
I paint the leaves with chromium oxide, highlighting the tips of the leaves with white where the sun hits them.
A butterfly perched on an ivy branch - a small romantic digression from the ascetic appearance of the monastery gallery
10. Step ten.
On the frame I mark the brickwork.
11. Step eleven.
I paint the frame, insert the panel. I fix the image with a matte spray varnish. I photograph the result
I add a little entourage - lavender in a metal jug will not be superfluous at all
Well, that's all. I hope you find this little creative demo helpful. Good luck!
The Garden of Illusions can be set up with mirrors and various tricky trompe l'oeil techniques. Look at the photo below for unusual garden decorations and make sure that these techniques are available to everyone. The material discusses some unusual decorations that allow you to create an unusual landscape design. Their application can be implemented in various variations.
How to make an optical illusion?
Next, consider how to make an optical illusion in your garden using various techniques. Decoys have been used in garden design for centuries. They were invented by the ancient Greeks (they made the columns of temples slightly tapering upwards, which visually added height to them), they were also used in Russian estates - for example, an ajar door was installed on the borders of possessions, then from a distance the image will seem real, paintings that were skillfully masked by greenery, with distant views depicted on them with a village, meadows and grazing herds.
You should not treat the garden space only as a place of application of hard physical labor, this is exactly the place where you can demonstrate your artistic abilities. There are many tricks using trellis, paint and mirrors that can be used to decorate a space that is not suitable for growing plants.
Trompley technique
Optical illusion, or the trompe voeil technique (fr. trompe Voeil) is a technique in art, the purpose of which is to create an optical illusion. With this technique, an object drawn in 2D appears to exist in 3D. This technique, born in ancient Rome, is still being successfully applied. Fake painting in the garden is done with water-soluble pigments on wet plaster, oil paints on a dry surface, acrylic paints, matte or glossy varnish, weatherproof paints are also used.
Trompley is a very interesting and effective technique, but when using it, certain conditions must be observed - the painting requires a perspective, there must be at least 3 m between the wall and the viewer. The scale of the drawing must be observed: all images must be commensurate with human growth.
A trick in the garden is a picture that uses special techniques of perspective painting, thanks to which a person looking at it from a certain angle perceives it as a reality. Most often they draw a landscape visible from a given place. They also depict a garden gate, behind which the neighboring garden is allegedly located, a false window painted on the wall looks spectacular, with a real window box and real plants in it. Of course, from a close distance you can see that this is a painting, but the farther you are from the drawing, the stronger the illusion of volumetric space, the tangibility of objects and forms. Deception is a window to another world, it breaks the line between reality and fantasy. Blends are especially effective in small-sized gardens, where there is not enough space and the opportunity to increase it is especially appreciated.
You can arrange a door in the fence. If you pull the handle of this door or just take a good look at it, you will find out a “terrible” secret - it leads nowhere, this is a garden illusion, a snag. The door is tightly attached to the fence, near which there is a barbecue area, and is located nearby.
Garden designers are often advised to hide not-too-attractive walls or fences with decorative trellises and vines, but this is not the only option; you can also “disguise” the fence with panels. Drawing on a wall or fence is not only a work of art, but also a great opportunity to visually enlarge the space and turn a boring flat vertical surface into a sea or a garden that goes into perspective.
We list the most commonly used techniques for changing space:
1. Optical illusion with objects similar to each other
If two trees or shrubs of the same size and shape are planted at the beginning and end of the path, then the viewer will make a certain conclusion about the distance between them (and, accordingly, about the length of the path). Now imagine what will happen if the distant tree or bush is replaced by a smaller one, but identical in shape. The viewer will have the illusion that the distance between two trees or bushes is greater than it really is. Thus, not only trees and in general, but also balls, flowerpots, stones and other repeating objects “play”. Visually “stretch” the path will also help such a technique: at the beginning we will plant plants with large leaves, for example, large hosts with huge leaves, and at the end - small-leaved plants, the same hosts, for example, but medium or small in size with small leaves, but similar in color.
Color also works according to the same principle: if you plant plants with green, yellow or variegated leaves and red, yellow and white flowers at the beginning of the path, and plants in bluish, greenish-gray and silver tones at a distance, then this distance will seem greater than it actually exists, due to the fact that an illusion is created that an air haze has been superimposed on the bluish plants, that is, they are located far enough away. Proper use of such optical effects literally pushes the boundaries of the garden.
2. Use of special designs
The structure of wooden planks attached to the fence, depicting arches with a tunnel, in the center of which a mirror is fixed, creates an illusory feeling that the garden continues behind the wall - you just need to go through the arch.
The garden space will change if you depict the facade of a house with a three-dimensional roof at the top on the fence. Such a false panel is akin to a theatrical scenery; in this case, a fragment of the fence becomes a garden hoax, depicting a house adjacent to the fence. Instead of glass, mirrors are inserted into its windows, in which the garden is reflected.
For the same purposes, you can use a wooden gazebo. If you put its front part (facade) close to the fence and draw an ajar door on the back wall, as if leading somewhere far away, then the optical illusion will work again - what is depicted in the picture from afar will seem real.
If you are particularly successful in some corner of the garden, you can enclose it in a wooden or metal frame of a sufficiently large size, for example 2.4x4 m, installed in front of it. It looks very impressive and original.
3. Creating a False Perspective with Paths That Gradually Taper
Unfortunately, this technique is only suitable for gravel paths. If you use this technique for paved, then the seams between the paving slabs will expose you. Effectively complete such a path with a reduced bench or an appropriate flowerpot. This technique works only in one direction, on the other side of this track the effect will be the opposite.
4. Borrowed landscape
The essence of this ancient method is the visual inclusion in the space of the garden of territories or elements that do not belong to this garden. If a river, field or large meadow is adjacent to the garden, you can give the impression that they are part of your possessions. This universal technique was invented by the Chinese several tens of centuries ago. For example, they included the pagoda visible in the distance in the garden space as part of it, and not as an object removed at a considerable distance. The garden opened to the world, and the distant mountain "entered the garden." An important point for the implementation of this idea is the creation of backstage, which can be stones, architectural buildings, tree and shrub compositions, with their help you will create multifaceted "theatrical scenery" in the garden.
5. Wall painting
It’s good for those gardeners who can see a river, a field or a forest adjacent to a fence in the distance, but don’t be discouraged, and for those who don’t have anything interesting outside their summer cottage, there is a way to “push” such boundaries. On the free walls of buildings or on the fence, you can depict a “magic landscape” with weatherproof paints.
Mirrors in landscape design in the garden and their photos
Large mirrors in the garden, completing the park alley, are an old garden blende, it can be used not only for large, but also for small spaces.
Another option is to close the arched span with a mirror. A path should lead to such a pseudo-arch, running at an angle to it, so that a person sees his reflection and solves the trick only when he comes close enough. You need to think carefully about the reflection in such a mirror; a beautiful garden should be reflected there, and not a corner of the house, for example. Mirrors perfectly "work" as a garden blende with trellises, arches and gates. Most often, trompe-l'oeil is arranged at the end of the garden path, then the deception is revealed only when the viewer comes close to the illusory object.
A stunning garden picture, “made” with a mirror, can also be opened from a garden bench. The mirror itself should be located in the shade, the northern or northwestern exposure is most suitable. The edges of the mirror are masked not only with the help of an arch, this can be done with the help of trees and shrubs or a frame, wooden or metal. Sometimes a mirror is attached to a blank fence, making this place look like an arch or gate and simulating a transition to another part of the garden.
If any composition in the garden seems especially attractive to you, you can place a large mirror in a chic frame in front of it. The composition will be reflected in the mirror, and you will get a beautiful picture that will change in accordance with the seasonal changes in the garden.
You can insert mirrors into the doors of a cabinet for storing garden tools, placed near the garden path, in the "mirror" version it will be completely invisible, you will not see the doors, but the garden reflected in the mirrors.
Mirrors in landscape design can magically change the space of a small garden, but they should be placed at an angle to the visitor, suddenly seeing your reflection in the mirror is not very pleasant.
Look at the mirrors in the garden in the photo, this will help you develop your own ideas for using them:
Photo gallery
What does it take to create tricks in the garden? Fantasy, artistic abilities, knowledge of the laws of perspective are required. The illusion is created with the help of two factors - the angle of view and the play of light. A trick seems to be a reality only from a certain angle of view, so it is important not only to come up with and implement a composition, but also to think about how to present it, limiting the angle of view to distracting objects - a statue, a group of shrubs, plants in a tub. You need to organize a garden illusion carefully, thinking through the idea and all the details, otherwise it will turn out funny and even vulgar.
Tromley or optical illusion is a technique and direction in modern painting based on the effects of optical illusions. The purpose of the blende is to create the effect of space and volume on a flat surface or on several surfaces, which, at a certain viewing angle, add up to three-dimensional pictures.
History of development
For the first time snags were used in the days of Ancient Rome and Greece. The most common illusions are a realistic image of a window, alcove, door, atrium on a flat wall surface. Optical illusion was used to visually expand the space of the room. The top of the art when using the tromple play technique is the creation of the most believable illusion. One of the greatest representatives of the movement in Greece was Zeuxis. Realistic snags on the walls did not allow to doubt the existence of the depicted object, even upon close examination from a close distance.
