TROMPE-L’OEIL O INGANNO TRA ANEDDOTO E STORIA DELLA CRITICA D’ARTE: BREVI RIFLESSIONI SUL GENERE

Abstract

Starting from a definition of trompe-l’oeil, the essay proposes a wide range of pieces
on the theme of trompe-l’oeil, from classical antiquity to Renaissance and seventeeth-
eighteenth-century literature, retracing the recurrence of the term /terms “deception
/ deceptions/ deceive ” in Giorgio Vasari, Benedetto Varchi, Vincenzo Borghini,
Federico Zuccari, Marco Boschini, Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Filippo Baldinucci,
Francesco Milizia just to name a few of the authors analyzed.
The essay ends with some considerations on the topicality of trompe-l’oeil painting
as an artistic genre by virtue of the bond that unites painter and spectator as already
observed by Ernst Hans Gombrich.