4

PERCEPTION AND ART
Andrea Pozzo, Ascension of St. 
Ignatius into Paradise (Trompe 
l’oeil ceiling fresco, S. Ignazio, 
Rome.)

If visitors to the Church of 
Sant’ Ignazio in Rome stand at a 
place on the floor marked by a 
yellow marble disk and look up 
at the ceiling of the nave, they 
will see a three-dimensional 
panorama of arches supported 
by columns, windows, and sky, 
with human figures arranged in 
various positions throughout, 
some of them seemingly 
suspended in midair. The 
spectators will know that this 
scene is a painting, because the 
human figures appear lifeless, 
but it looks real, so real that it 
is virtually impossible to tell 
where the architecture of the 
church ends and the painting 
begins. The painting, shown to 
the left, was made by Fra 
Andrea Pozzo at the end of the 
seventeenth century. It is the 
best-known example of a 
trompe l’oeil production and is 
all the more remarkable for 
having been painted on a 
hemicylindrical rather than a 
flat surface.