Word: oeil
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Keeffe, and an Axel Kesselbohmer--show skulls. Not one seventeenth- or eighteenth- century painting shows any of the other symbols associated with passing time; after such a lengthy label description of the section, their absence is conspicuous. However, in the "Fruit" section and again in the "Trompe I'Oeil" section, there are perfect examples of decaying fruit (one label doesn't even acknowledge its symbolic value) that would have been far more effective in the "Vanitas" gallery...
Despite these shortcomings, some of the pieces in the exhibition are worth examining more closely. The sections entitled "Trompe I'Oeil" and "Twentieth Century Still Life" liven up an otherwise drab show. The former category merits a close look because of the amazing technical skill with which they were painted. Most notable is "The Slate" of 1890-94 by John Haberle, in which the entire canvas is painted to look like a chalky slate, complete with a wooden frame, and, as the label points out, uses scientific precision and detail to create a canvas that appears messy and smudged...
...reporter is disciplined for trompe l'oeil newscast...
Nevertheless, Widowers' Houses is worth seeing, if only for the set design of Charles Morgan, which lavishly recreates the era of wrought iron garden furniture, trompe I'oeil marble trellises and crazy paving. And there are hints here and there of the Shaw who was yet to emerge--the wry cynic who could create dialogue such as this...
...been detailed to stand beside the picture and suppress any attempts to take down the fiddle and the bow." To some, Harnett suggested a classical parallel. He was the American Zeuxis, the Greek painter (none of whose works survive) who was said to be so good at trompe l'oeil that birds flew down to peck the grapes in one of his still lifes, thus proving that he could bamboozle not only men but Nature herself. People loved Harnett's work because they felt he was a con man. To be fooled and know you are being fooled (along with...