Art Terms: Trompe-l’œil
Art Terms: Trompe-l’œil Trompe-l’œil, which can also be spelled without the hyphen in English as trompe l’oeil, French for ‘deceive the eye’ is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions. History in painting Although the phrase has its origin in the Baroque period, when it refers to perspectival illusionism, use of trompe-l’œil dates back much further. It was (and is) often employed in murals. Instances from Greek and Roman times are known, for instance in Pompeii. A typical trompe-l’œil mural might depict a window, door, or hallway, intended to suggest a larger room. A version of an oft-told ancient Greek story concerns a contest between…