From Deception to Insight The Trompe L’oeil as a Critical Visual Strategy

In a subtle interplay with architecture and sculpture, painting has long developed a technique that enables painters to make the painting’s surface appear as if it is a three-dimensional space with real objects: trompe l’oeil. In it, we can distinguish different kinds of trompe l’oeil, varying from architectural trompe l’oeil painting – murals of illusory landscapes or architectural spaces – to the trompe l’oeil easel painting. Although it was regarded as one of the minor important painting genres, it is remarkable how the trompe l’oeil easel painting developed into a visual strategy of conceptual self-referentiality from the 17^th century onwards (Veca, 2002, Stoichita, 1997). In my artistic research I wonder to what extent this self-aware quality of the painterly trompe l’oeil can be turned into a strategy to investigate and challenge our contemporary visual culture.

On the one hand result-oriented virtuosity and striving toward an ever more exact copy of reality is no longer the goal in contemporary visual arts. As a result, the technique of the trompe l’oeil faded into the background in the 20^th century as well. On the other hand, however, illusion is more present than ever in contemporary visual culture. We are constantly getting seduced by images which are increasingly more realistic. 3D and even 4D cinema provide us with immersive movie-experiences that are apparently ‘more realistic than real life’, VR, AI and the metaverse are only at the starting point of their possibilities, whereas fake news and deep fake video’s easily find their way into (social) media, often challenging the boundaries of what’s legal. On top of that new media facilitate the enormous acceleration in which we consume images nowadays. (Rosa, 2013)

With my practice-based research I want to explore a forgotten potential the trompe l’oeil has to question this contemporary tendency. I try to discover whether the century-old and handcraft painterly strategy of trompe l’oeil, can function as a critical strategy to question the visually overwhelming and highly technological times we live by, feeding on the tradition of visual self-awareness it had in the 17^th century.

To clarify what I mean with ‘critical’. I dwell on Survivances des lucioles (2009), a study of Georges Didi-Huberman that reflects on writings by Pasolini and Agamben. Didi-Hubermann uses the metaphor of the ‘fireflies’ and the ‘spotlight’, taken from a letter by Pasolini. He compares the kind of images we can only follow or believe in that are typical of totalitarianism with a spotlight that leads our gaze to the horizon. In contrast, he discerns a kind of images that function as critical thoughts and compares them to fireflies, whirling around this dominant spotlight and shedding a gloomy light. Didi-Huberman states that both Agamben and Pasolini were very pessimistic about society at that time, because, as Pasolini noticed, ‘the fireflies are gone’. Like Didi-Huberman, I do not entirely share the pessimism, but I acknowledge the danger that lay in the totalitarian possibilities new media provide. As a result, I frame my research as a critical investigation into the question whether the painterly trompe l’oeil can shed the gloomy light of a firefly in times where the spotlights of new media and its proliferation of illusionism endanger to blind our sight.

To begin my research I explored the work of Cornelius Gijsbrechts, probably the most innovative trompe l’oeil painter of the 17^th century. Gijsbrechts developed several radically new ways of dealing with this particular genre, culminating in his famous work Reverse of a Framed Painting (1670-72) which is often called the ultimate meta-painting. (Stoïchita, 1997) Many aspects of this painting inspired me for my research and my own practice, but one aspect in particular set me on a path to further investigate in the light of the critical potential of the trompe l’oeil, namely the way it stages the creation process. In line with other meta-reflexive paintings (Carracci, Vermeer, Velazquez…) Gijsbrechts referred in many of his paintings to the act of painting by depicting painting tools such as brushes, a painting palette, a maulstick. But what was left underexposed is that in Reverse of a Framed Painting Gijsbrechts also visualized the act of painting by depicting black brushstrokes (assumably made by the frame maker) at the edges of the painterly frame.

Gijsbrechts’ work opened a wide range of possibilities for me to investigate the potential of using the trompe l’oeil as a method to create self-reflective paintings by pointing the viewer to the painterly process itself.

I gradually developed a specific way of painting. Unprimed pieces of canvas start by laying on my studio floor where they capture the traces of my creation process: drops, footsteps, sweeps of paint, oil stains… Next, I stretch them on a frame and start adding painterly marks in the same pictorial language of the traces. After that collage pieces are added and then painterly copied as trompe l’oeil elements. Through these several steps, my painting process evolves from pure coincidence to deliberately creating a composition which consciously embraces and simulates coincidence.

When adding the collage elements, I try to evoke a feeling of temporality. The shreds of paper seem only loosely attached to the canvas, which suggests that they can be replaced or removed. This impression of changeability is intensified by pieces of tape. These have grown into a crucial element in my paintings at two different levels. Firstly, the tape is of course a functional object, a painter’s tool. It depicts the painterly process in a way that is comparable to the stroke of a brush, a gesture that is decisive for the composition. Secondly, the tape also evokes a feeling of temporality, because an intrinsic characteristic of tape is that it should be removed after use. As I will explain later a trompe l’oeil illusion tends to seduce the spectator to touch the painting (Veca, 2002). The tape makes this impulse to act physically even greater because the spectator is urged to remove them.

In addition, I investigated other, even more direct possibilities in the way to address the viewer with trompe l’oeil collage elements, such as QR-codes on painted stickers or post-it notes attached to the canvas.

In doing so I gradually noticed, though, that the extent to which I could lure the spectator into the illusion of unfinishedness, was limited. As I have argued earlier (Van Imschoot & Gobyn, 2022) revealing the act of painting in the end result is quite common in contemporary painting. Leaving brushmarks visible for example is a widespread phenomenon nowadays. This is not strictly limited to painting. Forms of art that embrace the visual language of the creation process in their end result, have become more and more important in the 20^th century (Lauwaert, 1996). Consequently, the spectator is used to this visual language of unfinishedness and regards such a work indeed as a finished artwork as soon as it is presented in an exhibition space. This has everything to do with expectation and it is precisely on this aspect that the trompe l’oeil builds its illusion. (Singer, 2002)

In this regard Sybille Ebert-Schifferer pointed out to the importance of placing a trompe l’oeil object in the location where it is expected. (2002, 26) 17^th century trompe l’oeil painters where already aware of this, as we can learn from Arnold Houbraken when he writes about the chantourné objects, also known as cut-outs, such as apples and pears or a pair of slippers which could be found in a corner of a room or under a chair in the house of his teacher Samuel van Hoogstraten. (1880, 225). The illusion is enhanced by placing these slippers under a chair, where they are to be expected. Ebert-Schifferer adds that ‘the expectation that the object will be found in a specific context (…) is lost in a museum setting. In the case of my paintings these objects are actually paintings, and a painting is of course expected in an exhibition space, but an unfinished one isn’t. Consequently, the trompe l’oeil of an unfinished painting only functions in its full capacity – like the slippers under the chair – in the context of the space of its genesis, the studio.

Since my paintings are not meant to be shown in the studio, but in the exhibition space I had to look for a way to implement the context of being in process to the exhibition space itself. Many artists (Gijsbrechts, Cioci, Dennis, Muhlebrinck,…), made trompe l’oeil paintings of the studio wall, mostly including a painting attached to it. But those paintings function more like a depiction of this wall, rather than tricking the viewer into believing to stand before an actual studio wall. Singer distinguished two classes of trompe l’oeil: ‘First the trompe l’oeil that is intended to create a perfect illusion (…) and second, the trompe l’oeil that admits to being a painting and intentionally creates a conflict between contradictory percepts.’ (2002, 50) These studio wall paintings can be placed in this last category, but I wanted to fully investigate the potential of the first one.

Inspired by the example of van Hoogstraten filling his home with several chantourné objects which actually belonged there, I decided to implement the trompe l’oeil in a specific situation which takes place in the exhibition space. So, I created the illusion of an exhibition in the making. This concept didn’t turn the exhibition space into an illusion of a studio space, but a context in which the staging of the painting itself was in process. I started to create several trompe l’oeil objects of rolls of tape, pots of paint, a pencil and even moving blankets or trestles on which sometimes paintings were placed as if they still needed to be hanged on the wall. And next to that I immersed the space itself into a stage of unfinishedness by painting a mural of a plasterboard wall.

This caused a shift in my research; from solely trompe l’oeil paintings to implementing illusion in the space where the paintings are presented. I entered the field of scenography (mise-en-scene). As a result, my paintings seemed to start playing a role. The role of unfinished painting, the role of a painting waiting to be hanged on the wall and the role of a painting which presents itself to the public.

I wondered how this staging of the painterly process affected the position and the perception of the spectator. Inspired by the book ‘Absorption and Theatricality (1980) by Michael Fried, Paul Staiti states that ‘the theatrical consequence of trompe l’oeil paintings [of the 19^th century American trompe l’oeil painters] that stress the space of exchange between picture and viewer was significant, for it meant that trompe l’oeil, unlike other types of painting, refused to allow viewers to project themselves into and occupy mentally the fictive inner spaces of the work of art.’ ‘Instead’, he continues, ‘the activity of the viewer’s imagination takes place on the surface of the picture, or even in front of the picture.’ (2002, 94) By creating a scenery with and around my paintings I stretched this phenomenon. Instead of being absorbed by illusory figures in the painting the viewer is confronted with the staging of the scenery and the role the paintings play in the mise-en-scene. The viewer becomes at this point both spectator and participant in the staged construction, which makes the interaction between artwork and viewer more effective.

By increasing this interaction between artwork and spectator I tried to create a testing ground for criticality. How can this criticality manifest itself within the spectators? The answer is: by doubt. Doubt is the hinge through which a state of criticality can be opened. At first the spectators believe what they see: a canvas soiled by marks of a painterly process, with pieces of tape and shreds of paper loosely attached to it. But after a while doubt hits in, which triggers ‘the desire to validate or disprove the conclusion drawn from visual inspection by calling upon the tactile sense for comparison.’ (Singer, 2002) Neurobiological research has revealed that ‘perception is intimately related to the preparations of actions. When we direct our attention to an object within reach our motor system prepares to grasp and manipulate the object. Even if we decide not to execute the movement, the neurons involved in the programming of the motor act are activated, just as they would be were the movement actually performed.’ (Singer 2002, 45-46) It is the doubt my staged paintings tried to maximalize, which urges the spectators to question what they see. It is doubt that triggers them to critically examine their own perception. And it is the doubt that incites the spectators to look closer, or differently, more intensively, more slowly, questioning their own perception. This is the perfect ground for a critical state of mind.

This doubt is less present in new media such as VR, 3D cinema, metaverse… because the spectators surrender to it willingly. They expect to be absorbed and the medium itself doesn’t pretend to be something it is not. The trompe l’oeil on the other hand takes us by surprise, presenting itself as a reality, when in fact it is a simulation of a different one.

In this regard the way in which the trompe l’oeil functions is more comparable with the deep fake videos and fake news, which also lure the spectators into their deceit unwillingly. But dangerously enough they don’t want to be exposed as one. There is no doubt at play here, except perhaps a doubt serving a propaganda objective. So, at first the trompe l’oeil applies the same strategy, but eventually at the end the trompe l’oeil is most honest about its own deceit because only after revealing itself as an illusion it functions as it supposed to.

When we shed Pasolini’s metaphorical light over these new media it’s quite clear that they could be compared to the spotlight, the light which only direct our gaze one-sidedly to the horizon and blinds the glooming light of the fireflies.

At first sight, the trompe l’oeil looks similar to this spotlight as it aims to lure the spectator in its illusion. But when the doubt hits in, the light gets suddenly dimmed and once the eyes of the spectator are getting used to the darkness there is a possibility that they notice the tiny little lights of fireflies in which reflection and critical thought are made possible.