Until May 22, it is possible to see an exhibition in Madrid that not only requires going through rooms, briefly contemplating each work and reading excerpts from labels and explanatory panels. Hyperreal. The art of trompe l'oeil, in the Thyssen Museum, poses a game that confuses the look and that hides a trap: the trap that deceives the eye.
This game is part of painting since it seeks to imitate reality. In ancient Greece, Zeuxis and Parrhasius challenged each other to show which of them was the best painter of his time. Zeuxis represented some grapes that the birds took for real and that they came to peck. When Parrhasio invited his competitor to see his work, he indicated that he was behind a curtain. Trying to open it, he found that the curtain was painted. Zeuxis had deceived the birds, but Parrhasius deceived his colleague. It was he who won.
The account of the competition of the Greek masters was recovered in the Renaissance. Leonardo claimed that the beautiful must be based on nature. Technical advances made it possible for the painting to be believable. The line between faithful reproduction and tricking the eye was sometimes blurred. The perspective allowed to open walls and vaults in an extension of the architecture.
Arcimboldo's case is as exceptional as it is enigmatic. His faces are built from fruits, flowers, or animals. The result is disturbing. The trap transforms when moving away.
Still life of fruits and vegetables, Juan Sánchez Cotán, 1602.
STILL LIFE
But it was in the Baroque that the technique allowed artists to catch the observer's gaze and question whether what appeared on the canvas was a painting or an object. The Thyssen Museum exhibition, which advances in thematic blocks, starts with still lifes. The painter called El Labrador emulated Zeuxis and spent most of his career depicting bunches of grapes with disconcerting precision.
At the same time, the Carthusian Sánchez Cotán he incorporated into his works a stone shelf on which a thistle or an orange rested. Above them, hung on twine: carrots, lemons, a quince. Thus, he included a frame within the frame, furthering the confusion.
To perspective and optics, the baroque painters added their mastery in the play of light and shadow. Thus, the objects are nuanced and recede as they would when opening the pantry door. An insect sometimes perches on the frame or flutters around the fruit, accentuating the effect of the scene.
Still life with four bunches of grapes, El Labrador, 1636.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, many artists thought that since their work was destined to hang on the wall, why not replicate the wall? The French Liotard has, on a background that imitates the grain of wood, two reliefs which are held up with nails, and paper cutouts on which he has drawn what might be pencil sketches. They are no longer everyday objects, but the author's own work that is represented.
In Holland and Flanders had fervently cultivated the optical illusion which, precisely, acts as a mirror of nature. The artists began to nail and hang objects in their works that, in many cases, they had before their eyes in their own workshops or at home. Detailed calligraphic annotations are common, architectural charts, drawings and plans.
Documents of the treasury of the city of Amsterdam, Cornelis Brisé, 1656.
trompe l'oeil
Hoogsstraten added a nuance to these pieces. The accumulation of objects should reflect, in content and arrangement, the character of the artist. Disparate objects are arranged on the background textures, like a hieroglyph. This genre is called quodlibet: whatever you want, whatever you like.
The game is effective to the extent that the painter achieves the complicity of the observer. Deception is followed by the satisfaction that comes from uncovering a magician's trick. After the persuasion, or seduction, of the look, the ingenuity and virtuosity of the artist is hidden.
In the 19th century critical voices were raised. The trompe l'oeil was nothing but an empty wits game and lacking what distinguishes true art. Faced with religious painting or history painting, the genre was seen as a mechanical reproduction of reality, unrelated to the creative impulse and moral intention, essential in any artistic object.
In Europe the trompe l'oeil was relegated to the simply decorative. It will be in the United States, which was looking for its own expression in painting, where it occupied a prominent place. It was used by artists as a way to reflect their identity through objects. Other times it stands as memory of lost customs or historical moments.
Window in the afternoon, 1974-1982.
HYPERREALISM
The artists assumed the leading role of the products In American Industrial Society, in a tradition that will continue into the 20th century in pop art and hyperrealism. What are they but trompe l'oeil? Campbell's soup cans and Andy Warhol's Brillo boxes?
It will be hyperrealism that recovers the concept of deception to the eye, filtered through honesty and sincere representation of the environment. In Spain, Antonio López cultivates this search, which pursues the faithful representation of objects in light.
The exhibition Hyperreal. The art of trompe l'oeil It can be visited at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza until May 22, 2022.