Trompe L'Oeil,  Murals,  sophisticated Faux Finishes, decorative wall textures  and Hand Painted Furniture by Art Effects...

Trompe-l'œil, A French term literally meaning "trick the eye, is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion so the depicted objects appear in three-dimensional, instead of actually being a two-dimensional painting.

Trompe l'oeil, Sometimes called illusionism, is a style of painting which gives the appearance photographic realism. It flourished from the Renaissance onward. The discovery of linear perspective in fifteenth-century Italy and advancements in the science of optics in the 17th Netherlands enabled artists to render objects and spaces with eye-fooling exactitude. Both playful and intellectually serious, trompe-l'oeil artists toy with spectators' seeing to raise questions about the nature of art and perception.

This special painting technique results in the appearance of a three-dimensional image, giving the illusion of gazing out of an open window. A lovely addition to your home decor, faux windows make unique conversation pieces.

This story originated in ancient Greece:

Two painters were rivals in a contest. Each would try to make a picture that produced a more perfect illusion of the real world. One, named Zeuxis [ZOO-ziss], painted a likeness of grapes so natural that birds flew down to peck at them. Then his opponent, Parrhasius [pahr-HAY-zee-us] brought in his picture covered in a cloth. Reaching out to lift the curtain, Zeuxis was stunned to discover he had lost the contest. What had appeared to be a cloth was in reality his rival's painting.