Do you Trompe L’Oeil and What is this Anyways?

FOXY INTERIORS INCORPORATED SERVING CENTRAL FLORIDA

HOME STAGING. REDESIGN. RENOVATION

My husband and I got into a discussion today about “faux” (pronounced fo) painting.  And I said, “oh, trompe l’oeil.”  He looked at me quizzically as I began to explain what this term meant.  So what we had was two different terms meaning pretty much the same thing.  What is very different though is a faux finish changes texture or the appearance of the surface.  Trompe L’Oeil actually creates a dimensional object where none exists.  In other words, eye trickery.

Let’s start off with how to pronounce the word trompe l’oeil (tromp loy).  It’s actually a French word which means to deceive the eye.

Dictionary.com defines “trompe l’oeil” as visual deception, especially in paintings, in which objects are rendered in extremely fine detail emphasizing the illusion of tactile and spatial qualities.

Wikpedia.com defines “trompe l’oeil” as an art technique involving realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions

In its earliest forms, it was found in cave art.  Refer to my blog Early Interiors for more information about this topic.

Trompe l’oeil was also found during the Greek and Roman times.  Did you know that many masters (or artists) throughout both ancient and modern times used trompe l’oeil in both frescos (painting on a moist, plaster surface) and paintings?  Most recently during the 1990’s, trompe l’oeil and faux painting were very popular.  Its popularity gained over wallpaper because it was easier to change interiors by painting over instead of going through the hassle of removing wallpaper.

Trompe L’Oeil has always interested me because of the artisanship required to deceive the eye into having to ask oneself if what you’re viewing is real or not.  Below are a couple examples I pulled from The Trompe L’Oeil Home by Roberta Gordon-Smith.  I have a vast library of interior design and architecture resources from which I often pull information.  This is a great book because it shows 25 choices from which to pick, and provides step-by-step instructions. 

If you’re in the Central Florida area and you know someone who does Trompe L’Oeil, please contact me and let me know.  I’d love to have them as a resource.  Thanks for dropping by and reading Do you Trompe L’Oeil and What is this Anyways?