Real Illusions Trompe líOeil Exhibit at National Gallery Fools the Eyes by Gary Tischler Recently, I went to an exhibition opening at the National Gallery of Art, and I have to say, it was an odd experience. The security guard at the start of the show was a little scary, standing there, silent, not moving. But then, near the exhibition exit, I saw from a distance an attractive young woman studying one of the works with intense concentration. It was as if nobody else in the room existed and I thought, well, maybe things arenít so bad. Of course, none of this really happened, and the security guard and the young woman were not real people but spookily real auto-body sculptures by Duane Hanson. This was not an episode of ìThe Twilight Zoneî but the opening of ìDeceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe líOeil Paintingî on view in the National Galleryís East Building through March 2. The guard and the woman were not paintings, of course, but they made the point of the exhibition: Even today, the contemporary eye, jaded by every sight imaginable, can still be fooled. Thatís the essence of trompe líoeil paintingóto ìtrick the eyeî with paintings that appear real, art that gives you a chuckle and offers some safe embarrassment. This style of painting is a kind of amusement that also manages at times to comment in sly and shy ways on the age-old question of what is art and what is reality. The exhibition exists in many ways as a crash course, nonjudgmental celebration of the art of trompe líoeil, its categories, its famous and infamous practitioners, and its long history. Mostly, itís a kind of magic show, a roller-coaster ride thatís more a walk through a fun house than a museum, during which youíll hear oohs and aahs, laughter and giggles, and the occasional gasps of surprise. This is entertainment of the highest orderóand not to be dismissed. But its essential core is also trickery, painting as a presto process. So while the experience is certainly fun, the question you have to ask about trompe líoeil is one that high-art critics and artists have asked themselves: Is it great art? The answer is: sometimes, or define great, or define art. Or maybe, the answer is that this is not the exhibition or the place to have that discussion. The exhibition, although not exhausting or exhaustive, is a history of and a thematic funhouse centering on various aspects of trompe líoeil and its bag of tricksóperspective, bugs, dead birds and paper being chief among them. One of these tricks of the trade is a particularly time-honored one. Itís the trick that says this is so real, you can taste it, which may account for the large number of grape paintings here. Legend has it that the ancient Greek painter Zeuxis was so good at making things appear real that birds flew at his painted grapes and tried to eat them, much like the birds crashing into those Windex windows. On the other hand, they may have just been critics. This sort of thing may have fooled birds and people and elicited gasps down through the centuries, but we live in an age of virtual reality, films, computer-generated images and packs of pixels, and we may not be quite so astounded by this particular genre. Still, part of the genre was to paint credible, life-like flies into a painting, the result of which was that viewers would often try to swat the fly away. This little fly trick continues to be very effective in the painting ìCardinal Bandinello Sauli and Three Companionsî by Venetian artist Sebastiano del Piombo in 1516. Here we have the famous fly in the vestment. For reasons that are not apparent, form seemed to be popular with 16th-century Dutch painters and 18th- and 19th-century American painters. A wonderful example by the Dutch is Gerard Douís ìPainter With Pipe and Book,î where a realistically drawn curtain gives us the impression of a three-dimensional pipe smoker. William Michael Harnett, the 19th-century American painter who was the subject of an entire exhibition at the National Gallery a decade ago, is another matter. Although the materials of his paintings could fool the eyes of the times, his subjectsócolts, guns, dead fowl, programs, tickets, crumpled sheet musicóare intensely hyper-real in emotional terms. They induce a kind of sharply felt nostalgia that only art can do: The eye may be fooled, but the heart has different desires. Although the exhibition is huge and endlessly interesting, it doesnít truly need to carry too much intellectual weight. And it does have its lighter moments. How else can I explain that in my pocket I found the young womanís phone number in what appeared to be a crumpled-up message pad, which was actually a very small painting of a crumpled-up message pad. ìDeceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe líOeil Paintingî runs through March 2 at the National Gallery of Art, 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue, NW. For more information, please call (202) 737-4215 or visit www.nga.gov. Gary Tischler is a contributing writer to The Washington Diplomat.