Perspectiva Pictorum – um exercício de ilusionismo arquitetônico no tempo do Barroco

Abstract

The presented study focuses on analysing the pictorial decoration of realistic forms of architecture named by quadrature, whose origin in Luso-Brazilian universe dates from the first half of the 18th century. This text approaches a theme scarcely studied and investigated in the historiography of Brazilian and Portuguese art, with the exception of stylistic studies of Baroque and Rococo as a whole, but, rarely, the false architecture painting has been examined isolatedly. This subject aims to link the study of the painting of Baroque period with the science of Perspective. The analysis of representations of false spaces in perspectic “break-ins” combined with the evolution of the theoretical conception inserted in foreign treatises diffused in Portugal is another important aspect, without, however, neglect the Portuguese writings. Beyond the particular attention devoted to the painting itself, another concern was the relation between the real and the falsely built space. It is well known that the illusionistic painting constitutes an essential modality in the creation of rich interiors, for it is presented as a type of formal contamination in which Painting and Architecture mutually interpenetrate and simulate in audacious scenographic effects.