Architecture in Wall Paintings

Architectural design is often used in paintings to create an illusion of a three dimensional space. Most paintings are done on wood panel or canvas, both moveable materials, and therefore the space portrayed is limited to the framed scene. The placement of these works on a medium separate from the physical building, and thereby their framing, detaches it from the structure itself. Wall paintings, on the other hand, provide for an illusion of space beyond the physical walls of the architecture. They add depth to the rooms and almost extend the boundaries of the building by depicting scenes in architecturally structured areas.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper on the walls of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie is an excellent example of this. The four pairs of tapestry on either side of the table extend the refectory into another room where the scene of the last supper would have mirrored that taking place in the actual room. Although very simple architecture is portrayed, the linear lines and the meeting of the ceiling with the three walls in the back, creates a very real illusion of added physical space.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/leon/hd_leon.htm

Although Da Vinci uses a different method of wall painting, the concept has deep roots in Roman art. Four styles of wall painting evolve in the fresco method in the first century BCE. The effect of such designs was that of the illusion of the extension of physical boundaries through the paintings. The wall paintings at the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, near Pompeii, are clear predecessors of Da Vinci’s work. Although more elaborate in the depiction of architectural structures, the art opens the room to space outside the walls that stand there. The person standing in that room is exposed to city vistas and monuments placed in landscapes outside the boundaries of any four walls. These views are framed by architectural elements, such as columns, that could have been incorporated into the actual architecture of the room, providing for the illusion of a window. The clear depiction of architecture is what allows the resident or visitor of the villa to be exposed to a greater space than what the physical boundaries initially allow.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/03.14.13a-g

It is interesting to note, after I made the distinction between wall paintings and moveable ones, that this specific wall painting was actually partially moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where its effect is not as strong as it is once again separated from the physical boundaries it seeks to extend.

Dalya Arussy