Early Trompe-l’oeil Effects in the Last Supper Depictions by Domenico Ghirlandaio

Abstract

The many frescoes showing the Last Supper of Jesus and the Apostles painted in Florence in the Renaissance have already been studied at length by art historians. However they have never been analyzed and investigated from the point of view of the relationship between art and perspective science, and the relationship between the shape of the room that they decorate and the shape of the space that they depict. Perspective science was being mathematically codified and put into written words by Piero della Francesca in the very days in which Domenico Ghirlandaio painted two frescoes in the convents of San Marco and Ognissanti. We can thus consider Ghirlandaio's paintings as being pioneering art works that mark a turning point in this artistic genre, and we will try to understand how and to what extent he mastered the trompe l'oeil effects that he produced.

The Screen in Fresco Paintings: A Study of the ‘Screen-Style Frescoes’ in the Temples of Gaoping County in China

“…However, they differ from traditional Western mural paintings in the painting techniques used. Western mural paintings accomplished the optical illusion of real objects or scenes by strictly adhering to perspective drawing methods and utilizing color, light, and shadow gradients (Duvernoy and Mele 2017). For example, in Leonardo da Vinci's famous mural painting, The Last Supper, the principles of perspective drawing were utilized to position Jesus' head at the painting's focal point, which is further extended to what lies beyond the window behind Jesus.…”