Art · Premium
The perfect deception: the contest that wrote the rules of art
Two painters from ancient Greece, Zeuxis and Parrhasius, challenge each other to determine who is the greatest. Zeuxis paints a bunch of grapes so realistic that birds fly in to peck at them. Then Parrhasius reveals his painting: a curtain painted so perfectly that Zeuxis himself tries to lift it to see the artwork beneath. He admits defeat: "I have deceived the birds, but Parrhasius has deceived me." The anecdote becomes a metaphor for art as subtle deception: it is not enough to imitate nature, as Zeuxis did; one must be able to deceive the human intellect, as Parrhasius did. It is one of the first stories of trompe-l'œil, and it teaches that art is also play, mystery, and magic.
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