Friday, December 26, 2014

Armchair Travels: Trompe l'oeil Murals In Paris Streets

I read an article about hidden picturesque places in Paris, cobbled side streets and alleys with green corners. One place featured was Rue Cremiex which the brief caption said had trompe l'oeil murals. But no pictures of the murals.

So I typed the street name into my browser (online searcher) and up pop some pictures. One is of a mating of wisteria over the door, apparently growing up from a glower pot on the right which looks as if it is a real one. I think the pot is real, to add to the illusion. The caption says that it's a wisteria which never needs pruning.

Another photo shows a cat apparently leaping from one balcony to another.

A third photo shows a mock interior scene of a lady's double bed. Rather like Banksy's graffiti in the UK and now other countries by him or imitators.

http://blog.parisattitude.com/paris-tourism/loveliest-streets-paris.html?

https://geolocation.ws/v/W/File:Rue%20Crémieux,%2021.jpg/-/en

Prov=Taboolahttp://www.bing.com/images/search?q=rue+creieux+trompe+l'oeuil&qpvt=rue+creieux+trompe+l%27oeuil&FORM=IGRE

en.wikipedia.org/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe_l'oeil.html

In many restaurants you will find images of scenes looking outside through an imaginary window. This is used to create a feeling of space on a wall without windows, and to create the illusion that you are in the country of the cuisine served, in Italy, or perhaps a particular area. Here's Fellini Caffe Restaurant in Hatch End, NW London.




Inside the murals create the illusion of windows onto Italian scenes.






Sometimes both inside and outside have themes. The wall below is the outside of a building in south London.



This is also done in restaurants in hotels in Las Vegas where a complex has a theme.


I was hunting all over the internet for an out of copyright image of tromple l'oeil when I found the pictures of tromple l'oeil wallpaper. then I realised I had a whole trompe l'oeil wall in the living room a few feet away. I can tell you that an entire wall of tromp l'oeil is most amusing when you are newlywed and have almost no furniture. It fills up the wall.

Five, ten, twenty years later, a wallpaper mural is a dreadful nuisance. The vista of the garden looks great with potted plants and even a bamboo chair in front of it. But try to move your upholstered settee, drinks cabinet or bookcase in front and the illusion of space and outdoors is ruined and the whole effect is mis-matched and incongruous in style, (rustic and intellectual) space (outdoors and indoors), country (English garden and Oriental furniture, or Japanese garden and imitation Louis IV furniture) or both geography and time - Italian 1950s fishing village and English year 2000 modern furniture.

How about paining your own?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2196536/Talented-artist-banned-painting-murals-house-council-ONE-person-complained.html

Never been to the Sistine Chapel? Neither had this retired decorator. He saw it in a book and copied it, not in a grand mansion but a Council House.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451860/Retired-decorator-paints-house-look-like-Sistine-Chapel.html


Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author, speaker. See more about Angela Lansbury author and poet, on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Lulu.com

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