Trompe-l'œil in the context of "Richard Haas"

Baroque architecture is a highly decorative and theatrical style which appeared in Italy in the late 16th century and gradually spread across Europe. It was originally introduced by the Catholic Church, particularly the Jesuits, as a means to combat the Reformation and the Protestant church with a new architecture that inspired astonishment, reverence and awe. It reached its peak in the High Baroque (1625–1675), when it was used in churches and palaces in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Bavaria and Austria. In the Late Baroque period (1675–1750), it reached as far as Russia, the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America. In about 1730, an even more elaborately decorative variant called Rococo appeared and flourished in Central Europe.

Baroque architects took the basic elements of Renaissance architecture, including domes and colonnades, and made them higher, grander, more decorated, and more dramatic. The interior effects were often achieved with the use of quadratura (i.e. trompe-l'œil painting combined with sculpture): the eye is drawn upward, giving the illusion that one is looking into the heavens. Clusters of sculpted angels and painted figures crowd the ceiling. Light was also used for dramatic effect; it streamed down from cupolas, and was reflected from an abundance of gilding. Twisted columns were also often used, to give an illusion of upwards motion, and cartouches and other decorative elements occupied every available space. In Baroque palaces, grand stairways became a central element.

Rococo, less commonly Roccoco (/rəˈkoʊkoʊ/ rə-KOH-koh, US also /ˌroʊkəˈkoʊ/ ROH-kə-KOH; French: [ʁɔkɔko] or [ʁokoko] ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art, and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, and trompe-l'œil frescoes to create surprise and the illusion of motion and drama. It is often described as the final expression of the Baroque movement.

Originally known as the “style Rocaille," Rococo began in France in the 1730s as a reaction against the more formal and geometric Louis XIV style. It soon spread to other parts of Europe, particularly northern Italy, Austria, southern Germany, Central Europe and Russia. It also came to influence other arts, particularly sculpture, furniture, silverware, glassware, painting, music, theatre, and literature. Although originally a secular style primarily used for interiors of private residences, the Rococo had a spiritual aspect to it which led to its widespread use in church interiors, particularly in Central Europe, Portugal, and South America.

In architecture and decorative art, ornament is decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornaments do not include human figures, and if present they are small compared to the overall scale. Architectural ornament can be carved from stone, wood or precious metals, formed with plaster or clay, or painted or impressed onto a surface as applied ornament; in other applied arts the main material of the object, or a different one such as paint or vitreous enamel may be used.

A wide variety of decorative styles and motifs have been developed for architecture and the applied arts, including pottery, furniture, metalwork. In textiles, wallpaper and other objects where the decoration may be the main justification for its existence, the terms pattern or design are more likely to be used. The vast range of motifs used in ornament draw from geometrical shapes and patterns, plants, and human and animal figures. Across Eurasia and the Mediterranean world there has been a rich and linked tradition of plant-based ornament for over three thousand years; traditional ornament from other parts of the world typically relies more on geometrical and animal motifs. The inspiration for the patterns usually lies in the nature that surrounds the people in the region. Many nomadic tribes in Central Asia had many animalistic motifs before the penetration of Islam in the region.

Illusionism in art history means either the tradition of art that appears to share the physical space with the viewer or more broadly the attempt to represent physical appearances precisely – also called mimesis. The latter can also be called realism, but the term can also mean the use of everyday subject-matter, or the avoidance of idealizing subjects. Illusionism encompasses a long history, from the deceptions of Zeuxis and Parrhasius to the works of muralist Richard Haas in the twentieth century, that includes trompe-l'œil, anamorphosis, optical art, abstract illusionism, and illusionistic ceiling painting techniques such as di sotto in sù and quadratura. Sculptural illusionism includes works, often painted, that appear real from a distance. Other forms, such as the illusionistic tradition in the theatre, and Samuel van Hoogstraten's "peepshow"-boxes from the seventeenth century, combine illusionistic techniques and media.

The Sistine Chapel (/ˈsɪstiːn/ SIST-een; Latin: Sacellum Sixtinum; Italian: Cappella Sistina [kapˈpɛlla siˈstiːna]) is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the pope's official residence in Vatican City. Originally known as the Cappella Magna ('Great Chapel'), it takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who had it built between 1473 and 1481. Since that time, it has served as a place of both religious and functionary papal activity. Today, it is the site of the papal conclave, the process by which a new pope is selected. The chapel's fame lies mainly in the frescoes that decorate its interior, most particularly the Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Last Judgment, both by Michelangelo.

During the reign of Sixtus IV, a team of Renaissance painters including Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli, created a series of frescoes depicting the Life of Moses and the Life of Christ, offset by papal portraits above and trompe-l'œil drapery below. They were completed in 1482, and on 15 August 1483 Sixtus IV celebrated the first mass in the Sistine Chapel for the Feast of the Assumption, during which the chapel was consecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The Sala delle Asse (In English: 'room of the wooden planks'), is a large room in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, the location of a painting in tempera on plaster by Leonardo da Vinci, dating from about 1498. Its walls and vaulted ceiling are decorated with "intertwining plants with fruits and monochromes of roots and rocks" and a canopy created by sixteen trees.

The walls and ceiling are painted with a trompe-l'œil scheme depicting trunks, leaves, fruits, and knots, as if it was in the open air and not within a castle. Art historian Rocky Ruggiero describes the decoration of the square, fifteen-by-fifteen-meters room as creating the effect of a natural pergola as an architectural feature. Ruggiero suggests that Leonardo drew upon all of his scientific research into natural systems as he painted the masterful illusion that resembles a grove of mulberry trees.

Illusionistic ceiling painting, which includes the techniques of perspective di sotto in sù and quadratura, is the tradition in Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo art in which trompe-l'œil, perspective tools such as foreshortening, and other spatial effects are used to create the illusion of three-dimensional space on an otherwise two-dimensional or mostly flat ceiling surface above the viewer. It is frequently used to create the illusion of an open sky, such as with the oculus in Andrea Mantegna's Camera degli Sposi, or the illusion of an architectural space such as the cupola, one of Andrea Pozzo's frescoes in Sant'Ignazio, Rome. Illusionistic ceiling painting belongs to the general class of illusionism in art, designed to create accurate representations of reality.

Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often colored materials into depressions in a base object to form ornament or pictures that normally are flush with the matrix. A great range of materials have been used both for the base or matrix and for the inlays inserted into it. Inlay is commonly used in the production of decorative furniture, where pieces of colored wood, precious metals or even diamonds are inserted into the surface of the carcass using various matrices including clear coats and varnishes. Lutherie inlays are frequently used as decoration and marking on musical instruments, particularly the smaller strings.

Perhaps the most famous example of furniture inlay is that of André-Charles Boulle (1642–1732) which is known as Boulle work and evolved in part from inlay produced in Italy during the late 15th century at the studiolo for Federico da Montefeltro in his Ducal Palace at Urbino, in which trompe-l'œil shelving seems to carry books, papers, curios and mathematical instruments, in eye-deceiving perspective. The similar private study made for him at Gubbio is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.