The Trompe-l’oeil at Lyon, France

During one of the rest days for Tour de France, we also thought of taking a break from the race and move to explore another part of France not covered during the TdF. We chose Lyon, second largest city in France after Paris with a population of over 1.7 million people and an industrial centre specializing in chemical, pharmaceutical and biotech industries besides a fast growing gaming and software industry.

Besides the Old city, mini Eiffel Tower, interesting art museums, Traboules ( the famous secret passages) and its hilltop castle Lyon we were told was famous for its colourful architecture with Trompe-l’oeil paintings. So that became one of our focuses during our long walks across the city.

Trompe-l’oeil is French for ‘Trick the eye’ and one look at such a painting on the wall will tell you why it is called so. I nearly missed these paintings till I readjusted my eyes and observed closely. For example in the following paintings I almost thought that there was a woman standing with her baby at the window, that there was a real person standing in front of the library, that there was an actual painter standing near a wall immersed in his work!

This painting only reconfirms Lyon’s reputation of being a capital of gastronomy.

Now who wouldn’t think that that was a real carpet hanging off the wall and who wouldn’t think those were real people overlooking the street??!!

This one was comparatively easier to catch, after all you don’t have King Lions window shopping everyday do you?

Such paintings can be seen across the city. We were told that there were nearly 150 such paintings, all unique, colorful and real life like. The specialty of these paintings is that it creates an optical illusion to make it look like three-dimensional despite it being a two dimensional design.

The following wall painting has been sponsored by Fur wear company which wanted to show that fur was cool to wear, the black panther & the tiger being the animals they depicted, although the companies are not allowed to display their logos we were told.

Trompe-l’oeil paintings can be an interesting and clutter breaking way of advertising for most of the companies. Most of us would already have seen the Mountain Dew advertisement, which was circulated, as an email attachment. This advertisement appeared in Union Square, New York City and was made by Julian Beever, a Belgium based chalk artist.

The Japanese company Toyota chose the Architecture and culture theme of that of Lyon to characterize its new commercial centre, Tressa in Yokohama. Shanghai in China, claims to have the biggest trompe-l’oeil fresco in the world. Examples of such mural paintings can also be found in other countries like Russia, Israel, Greece, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Mexico besides of course France.

The earliest remaining example of trompe l’oeil was found in the unearthing of Pompeii and is thousands of years old. Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania.

There are various old, modern and contemporary masters who specialize in Trompe-l’oeil form of art. Such paintings can be painted over walls, ceilings and even pavements.

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