How to Paint Wall Murals - History of French wall mural painting
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IAN LOVEALL: Hi. My name is Ian Loveall and I'm with Expert Village. We're talking about
mural painting today. Around the 1400s, frescoes were sort of reaching their heyday and more
technology and discovery were being made regarding color and shadow, light and perspective, and
this gave rise to a new school of painting known as "Trompe l'Oeil" which is French for
"Trick the Eye." This was widely popular in churches. At the time, the church was really
the only institution with enough money to commission these paintings. As you can see
we've got this beautiful carved niche in the wall with the crucifixion scene. However,
if you'll look closely, you'll see that everything on this picture has been painted; all the
architecture, the drapery, every element is painted. It's all an illusion. Now this was
widely popular because obviously, why pay the millions and millions and millions that
would take to actually build a structure like this when you could simply paint something
that would look just as real? This tradition continues to this day and this is sort of
the school that I have studied and my goal is to continue to perfect my art as a trompe
l'oeil artist to the point that you can look at a painting and it'll take you a minute
before you realize that you're looking at a painting. And that's sort of the whole goal
of trompe l'oeil.
