The Little-Known Painter Who Took Optical Illusionism to Another Level

An ingenious painting that reconsiders reality

Trompe l’oeil with Studio Wall and Vanitas Still Life (1668) by Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts. Oil on canvas. 152 × 118 cm. Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark. Image source

One way to understand the unfolding of art history is to treat it as a series of discoveries about what paint can do.

Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts was a Flemish painter who worked in the second half of the 17th century and took art to a place it had never gone to before.

What truly fascinated Gijsbrechts was his ability to transform paint into illusionistic reality.

His works raise trompe l’œil — the French term meaning “deceive the eye” — to another level, creating such convincing visual trickery that viewers are compelled to question where reality ends and illusion begins.

Little is known about him, but what we can say is that his paintings have the extraordinary quality of being so innovative in their details that they challenge our own sense of perception.

Let’s look a little closer…

A replica of reality

Detail of ‘Trompe l’oeil with Studio Wall and Vanitas Still Life’ (1668) by Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts. Oil on canvas. 152 × 118 cm. Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark. Image source

The first thing you might notice about this image is that it’s actually a painting…