Читать книгу Imperial Illusions - Kristina Kleutghen - Страница 89

2.10Detail of illusionistic ceiling paintings. From Nian Xiyao, The Study of Vision. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, Douce Chin. B. 2, p. 52v.

sotto in sù (from below, upward), a striking characteristic of quadratura ceiling painting and essential to its European origins.⁵⁹

These two illustrations of the completed false ceilings on this page are the only images in The Study of Vision that employ obvious shading achieved through various densities of hatching and cross-hatching, rather than being depicted merely using simplified outlines. The inclusion of the shading and the omission of any preparatory or explanatory lines (an absence otherwise seen only in the opening image) therefore identify these as the only two images to depict the final illusionistic product of Nian’s instructions. Concluding his point-by-point description of how to create the false ceilings, Nian describes the powerful effects of such techniques, reinforcing the effect of such a painting on the viewer: “If you paint a ceiling according to this method and view it from below, the sides of the picture will unite, the stone columns will soar skyward, and the latticed windows will set off each other. It will look like a multistoried structure towering above, and through its openings