Simulation
Context Architecture: Fundamental Concepts Between Art, Science, and Technology
Digitalization has altered architectural discourse. Today, discussions in architectural theory and
design are shaped by many new ideas, including some that previously had no meaning in that context, or else very different ones. Increasingly, the conceptualizations and strategies of architectural
discourse are molded by influences emerging along the interface joining scientific and cultural
images of modern information technology. Posing itself against this background is the question: on
the basis of which practical and in particular which theoretical concepts can architecture come to
terms with these new technologies, thereby entering into a simultaneously productive and critical
dialogue with them? Presented for debate in Context Architecture is a selection of such ideas, all of
them central to current discourses. Context Architecture is a collaboration of the Zurich University
of the Arts (ZHdK) and Ludger Hovestadt, chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design at the ETH
Zurich.
Available in the series Context Architecture:
Simulation. Presentation Technique and Cognitive Method,
ISBN 978-3-7643-8686-3
Complexity. Design Strategy and World View,
ISBN 978-3-7643-8688-7
Context Architecture
A collaboration of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and the ETH Zurich
Simulation
Presentation Technique
and Cognitive Method
CONTEXT ARCHITECTURE
Edited by Andrea Gleiniger and Georg Vrachliotis
Birkhäuser
Basel · Boston · Berlin
Translation from German into English, contribution by Thomas Hänsli: Lisa Rosenblatt, Vienna
Translation from German into English, all other texts: Ian Pepper, Berlin
Copy Editing: Monica Buckland, Basel
Cover and layout design: Bringolf Irion Vögeli GmbH, Zurich
Reproductions and typesetting: weissRaum visuelle Gestaltung, Basel
This book is also available in German: Simulation. Präsentationstechnik und Erkenntnisinstrument,
ISBN 978-3-7643-8685-6.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008925218
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7 Andrea Gleiniger & Georg Vrachliotis
EDITORIAL
13 Thomas Hänsli
PARRHASIUS’S CURTAIN
VISUAL SIMULATION’S MIMESIS AND MEDIALITY
29 Andrea Gleiniger
OF MIRRORS, CLOUDS, AND PLATONIC CAVES:
20TH-CENTURY SPATIAL CONCEPTS IN EXPERIMENTAL MEDIA
51 Nils Röller
SCIENTIA MEDIA – SIMULATION BETWEEN CULTURES
63 Georg Vrachliotis
FLUSSER’S LEAP:
SIMULATION AND TECHNICAL THOUGHT IN ARCHITECTURE
83 Gabriele Gramelsberger
THE EPISTEMIC TEXTURE OF SIMULATED WORLDS
93 Erich Hörl
KNOWLEDGE IN THE AGE OF SIMULATION:
METATECHNICAL REFLECTIONS
Appendix:
107 Selected Literature
115 Illustration Credits
117 Biographies
EDITORIAL
“Our interest in the invisible world stems from a desire to find a form for it in the
visible one, which means to prise open, to decompose, to atomize the deceptively
familiar, the visible exterior appearance, before we can deal with it again. [...] We
are interested in the hidden geometry of nature, in an intellectual principle, and
not primarily in the external appearance of nature.”1 This is how Jacques Herzog
and Pierre de Meuron describe their architectural enterprise. In the age of computer simulation, this characterization appears in a very special light. Increasingly, conceptualizations and strategies for architectural design are conditioned
by influences that lie somewhere along the interface between scientific and cultural images of contemporary information technology. This raises the question:
by means of which practices, and in particular which theoretical tools, can architecture productively interact with these new technologies while simultaneously
engaging in a critical dialogue with them?
Just how close the above characterization by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de
Meuron comes to what Vilém Flusser has dubbed “calculatory thought”2 becomes
clear only against the background of the computer as a “universal machine.” For
the interplay between analysis and synthesis made possible by the computer
points toward a level where, finally, overarching questions can be weighed in the
context of reflections on architectural production. In light of the increasing dissemination of models of thought drawn from information technology, it has
become necessary to re-engage in a critical discussion of the relationship between
architecture and art, science, and technology. But it is not a question simply of
heeding repeated demands to re-situate architecture. Rather, it is an issue of the
basic concepts that make it possible to identify, reflect upon, and contextualize
1 Jacques Herzog und Pierre de Meuron, “Die verborgene Geometrie der Natur,” in Sturm der Ruhe.
What is Architecture? ed. by the Architekturzentrum Wien, Salzburg 2001, p. 265, (lecture delivered by
Jacques Herzog, Basel 1984, in: Herzog & de Meuron, 1978–1988 – Das Gesamtwerk, ed. Gerhard Mack
vol. 1, Basel, Boston, Berlin 1984, pp. 207–211): “Unser Interesse an der unsichtbaren Welt liegt darin,
für sie in der sichtbaren Welt eine Form zu finden, das heißt das trügerisch vertraute, sichtbare, äußere
Erscheinungsbild aufzubrechen, zu zerlegen, zu atomisieren, bevor wir erneut damit umgehen können.
[...] Unser Interesse ist die verborgene Geometrie der Natur, ein geistiges Prinzip und nicht primär eine
äußere Erscheinungsform der Natur.”
2 Vilém Flusser, “Digitaler Schein,” in: Digitaler Schein: Ästhetik der elektronischen Medien, ed. Florian
Rötzer, Frankfurt 1991, pp. 152ff.
7
the transformative processes to which architectural design thinking has been
subjected under the influence of the paradigm change triggered by information
technologies.
In light of the method of investigation alluded to by Herzog and de Meuron,
we might also ask: “Could there be anything more natural than to start with the
visible form and then gradually to penetrate into the realm of the invisible? The
architect must be able to manipulate the invisible so as to render reality visible,
but also capable of seeing reality in order to change it.”3 The instrument for
achieving this is computer simulation, with which it has become possible not
only to visualize and represent the invisible, the as-yet inexistent or inconceivable,
but also to gain access to an epistemological investigation. And is this not precisely the inverted path toward knowledge harbored by computer simulation? To
begin in the realm of the non-visible, advancing painstakingly towards the structures of the visible? For an increasingly computational scientific landscape, this
development towards synthetic procedures opens up a broad spectrum of new
paths towards knowledge production. This is also the case for architecture. We
are far from fathoming in detail just what this methodological turning point
offers architectural design and planning processes. In this context, the concept of
simulation must be accorded a very special significance. All the more so since it
can be positioned in terms of architectural history as well as in a context of the
growing importance of digital design and production methods.
In architecture as well,the concept of simulation plays an essential role in discussions of mediatization: as illusion and imitation, as dissimulation and mimesis.
In dialogue with information technology and computer science, moreover, it has
acquired a new quality for architectural discourse as well: today, we understand
simulation primarily as computer simulation. While simulation once pertained to
modes of presentation, it now connects architecture to the natural sciences and to
a methodological and strategic instrument, a tool of knowledge. Ontologically,
computer simulation must be distinguished from the spectrum of traditional concepts of simulation found in architecture. It is no longer merely a technology of
visual simulation, but rather a technological instrument for acquiring knowledge
3 Franz Oswald: Foreword to Pierre von Meiss: Elements of Architecture: From Form to Place, Lausanne
1991, p. xiii; “Préface” in: Pierre von Meiss: De la forme au lieu: Une Introduction à l’étude de l’architecture,
Lausanne 1986, p. 7: “Y a-t-il voie plus évidente que de partir du visible, la forme, pour pénétrer peu à peu
dans l’invisible, le caché? L’architecte doit être capable de manier des choses invisibles pour rendre visible la réalité, capable aussi de voir la réalité afin de la transformer.”
8
Editorial
in the spirit of the modern natural sciences. This means a leap from a timeless to a
time-contingent technology. It is this temporal aspect that distinguishes computer
simulation from inherited concepts of simulation in architecture.
Computer simulation in architecture has a relatively brief history. As a rule,
computer simulation is classified with computing and applied mathematics,
while the technical development of its visualization methods is nonetheless inseparable from certain architectural aspects. Even early on, architects were involved in the development of computer-based methods of representation. More than
20 years ago, Horst Rittel, a former lecturer in design science at the Hochschule
für Gestaltung in Ulm, referred to computer simulation as one of the most important areas where architects interacted with the computer.
With the rapid development of hardware and software, finally, numerical
simulation advanced to become a new working practice in science and research,
in architecture and design. Having now established itself as a ubiquitous cultural
technology, it increasingly alters our interactions with the world. “Simulation,”
then, is a fundamental concept in whose definitions repeated demands for transdisciplinarity make themselves felt. This is true not only for the arts, but perhaps
even more so for a dialogue between architecture, technology, and the sciences.
With this background, it becomes clear that a discussion of such basic concepts
goes beyond the traditional discursive boundaries of architectural discourse, and
is characterized increasingly by an intensive dialogue with the theory and philosophy of technology and with the history of science.
In order to do justice to these aims, we have chosen authors from diverse disciplines, all of whom we consider to have had a fundamental impact on the shaping
and interpretation of these conceptualizations in architecture, or to be expected to
do so in the future. Please note that it has not been possible to take account of every
discipline that has been preoccupied with simulative strategies, whether conceptually, technologically, or in terms of epistemology. Instead of a contribution from
the perennially popular field of neuroscience, for example, we chose to focus on
one of the earliest and simultaneously most advanced fields of application of
numerical simulation, meteorology. The modeling and simulation of climatological scenarios, of new molecules and materials, as well as of new building types
and complex geometries, all testify to the profound change triggered by the use of
computer-based simulations. A better understanding of this change from an architectural perspective also requires a deepened critical confrontation with historical
as well as contemporary definitions of the concept of simulation.
9
Taking as his point of departure the concept of mimesis as formulated
during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, with recourse to Classical Antiquity, Thomas Hänsli’s article traces art-theoretical interpretations of the idea of
simulation and its artistic applications, beginning in the 15th century. Against
this background, he inquires into the jurisdiction of the concept of simulation for
current artistic presentations of architecture, for example, in the area of architectural photography.
The article by Andrea Gleiniger demonstrates that the adaptation of the idea
of simulation in the history of 20th-century architecture spread beyond the fields
of representation and visualization. Using examples drawn from 20th-century
spatial conceptions in the field of experimental media, she makes it clear that the
concept of simulation was reflected and transformed in modern architecture in
ways closely related to the history of ideas and of the media. In an outline of architectural history leading from El Lissitzky’s “Wolkenbügel” all the way to contemporary digital work, the history of an increasingly mediatized architecture is also
read as a history of simulation. Decisive here is the way in which the concept of
simulation, hitherto primarily tied to modes of representation and presentation,
now links architecture increasingly to knowledge acquisition and to the natural
sciences at the level of strategies for modeling dynamic processes.
It is with regard to reflections on architecture from the perspective of media
history that media-theoretical realizations of the concept of simulation acquire
their special significance. This is all the more true because in media studies as
well, as Nils Röller elaborates, the terms “simulation as dissimulation” and “simulation as modeling” are used to distinguish two traditional conceptualizations.
Artificial intelligence developed from a branch of early computer science to
become an independent and powerful scientific program, one that broke down
eventually when it failed to live up to its own expectations. The desire, articulated
in this context, to render complex models used in scientific investigations accessible through computer simulation is nonetheless decisive for discussions of the
concept of simulation. Emerging in place of seemingly deceptive visualizations
are questions of prognostication. Against this background, Georg Vrachliotis
investigates the resulting impact on technical thinking in architecture. The associated question – which architectural design instruments can be generated from
the historico-discursive space of computer simulation? – leads to a search for adequate theoretical access to an architectural production that is increasingly
stamped by the structural sciences. Critical architectural reflections on the
10
Editorial
methods of numerical computer simulation (which are substantially structural,
and are characterized by a “mathematics of temporal procedures”4) demands
more than an improved understanding of the underlying technical principles.
Even more important is an improved feel for their sociocultural implications and
limitations. The heightened penetration of numerical computer simulation in
the diverse branches of scientific research endows it with the status of a cultural
technology.5 From the perspective of the philosophy of technology, Gabriele
Gramelsberger not only examines the general constitution of these mathematical
worlds, but also investigates their epistemo-theoretical space of possibility on the
basis of specific climatological simulations. Anyone wishing to become more
closely involved with simulation should avoid remaining on the “surface of the
monitor,” for only a look into the depths of the data makes it possible for these
semiotic worlds to be investigated adequately. Even earlier, it had become evident
that such an investigation would necessarily refer to an additional, overarching
level of discussion: to the changing relationship of interdependency between
knowledge production and the mathematical logic of computer simulation. As
Erich Hörl points out in his article, one prerequisite for any understanding of this
transformation of knowledge is an enquiry into the epistemological and ontological situation created by the “computational turn” in the sciences. More than
the meaning of the sciences, he argues, is displaced by computer-supported practices of modeling and simulation, from the descriptive to the projective. More
important, the status of the technological shifts as “technical objects with minority status” and tools of instrumental reason form a “majoritarian structure,” a
“new milieu of knowledge and becoming.” Detectable within the contours of
these lines of development on various levels of knowledge production, in diverse
dimensions of the aesthetic and of the technical, and in the most various disciplines, is a change in the concept of simulation – one that, considering the steady
growth potential for applications of computer simulation, has perhaps yet to be
exhausted. The essays collected in this volume attempt to expose a multifaceted
panorama, and to set the basic idea of simulation and its underlying
cultural-historical dynamics in an architectural context.
4 Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker: Die Einheit der Natur. Studien, Munich 1971, p. 23; English edition
available: The Unity of Nature, New York 1980.
5 See Walther Zimmerli: Technologie als Kultur. Braunschweiger Texte, Hildesheim 1997.
11
In conjunction with an accompanying volume on the topic of “Complexity,”
this essay collection on “Simulation” initiates the publication Series Context
Architecture. This series undertakes the task of opening up for discussion fundamental architectonic concepts in a realm situated between art, science, and technology. This project developed from an intensive collaboration between its two
editors, and its profile came into sharper focus via constructive dialogue with its
various authors. We take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all of our
writers for their profound contributions to this volume. All texts were written
expressly for the present publication.
Our very special thanks also to Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Schwarz, Founding
Rector of the Zurich University of the Arts, and to Prof. Dr. Ludger Hovestadt,
chair of Computer Aided Architectural Design at the ETH Zurich. Their generous
financial support and encouragement regarding content made it possible for our
book project to assume its present form. The associated cooperation between
these two institutions also reflects the aim of bringing architecture, technology,
art, and science into dialogue, and has manifested the ubiquitous call for transdisciplinarity in a singular fashion. Ultimately responsible for realizing this
publication project was Birkhäuser Verlag. Our very special thanks go to Robert
Steiger and Véronique Hilfiker Durand for their patient, competent, and consistently committed editorial efforts.
Andrea Gleiniger, Georg Vrachliotis
12
Thomas Hänsli *
PARRHASIUS’S CURTAIN:
VISUAL SIMULATION’S MIMESIS AND MEDIALITY
“The artist deals no longer with reality, but produces a picture of a picture of
reality.”
Thomas Ruff, Interview 1994
The Roman author and scholar Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) provides us with
what is certainly the first and also most meaningful description of the visual
simulation of reality. In this account, Pliny reports a contest between the artist
Zeuxis of Heraclea and his rival Parrhasius of Ephesus to determine which of
them was the greater artist.1 Zeuxis displayed his painting of grapes depicted in
such a deceptively real way that even the birds were fooled and flew in flocks to
feast on the fruits. But Zeuxis’s triumph was short-lived: when he arrived at
Parrhasius’s studio impatient to see his rival’s painting, which was supposedly
covered by drapes, he invited Parrhasius to unveil the finished work. But Zeuxis
had erred, for it was not a curtain covering Parrhasius’s painting; rather, the
curtain was painted. While Zeuxis had been able to deceive nature, Parrhasius
had deceived Zeuxis, an artist. [Fig. 1]
Meanwhile, the legend’s main significance is as reference, not to the artists’
contest, but rather to the principle of mimesis in the arts, and thereby to the fundamental relationship between art and reality.2 It was Aristotle (384–322 BC), no
less, who elevated mimesis, i.e., imitating nature by means of art, to the determination of art, and thereby to the artist’s primary and most noble task. This dictum, which would have great consequences later, can be read in his Poetics.3 Alt* My thanks go to the editors of the present volume for their patience as well as the very fruitful discussions with them and the co-authors. A special thanks goes to Jens Trimpin and Magdalena Nieslony
for generously providing illustration and catalogue material as well as to Katja Lemelsen for establishing
the contact with them.
1 Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, Book XXXV Chapter 36.
2 Hans Blumenberg: “Nachahmung der Natur. Zur Vorgeschichte der Idee des schöpferischen
Menschen,” in: Studium generale, 1957, vol. 10, pp. 266–283. See also Nicola Suthor: “Mimesis (Bildende
Kunst),” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, vol. 5, ed. Gerd Ueding, Tübingen 2001, pp. 1294–1316.
3 Aristotle: Poetics, 1447a, 1448b. Aristotle grounds this in the anthropological foundation of human
perception as mimesis and the human ability to imitate.
13
Fig. 1: Johann Jacob von Sandrart (1655–98): Zeuxis und Parrhasius, 1675 [after a painting by Joachim von
Sandrart].
14
Thomas Hänsli | Parrhasius’s Curtain: Visual Simulation’s Mimesis and Mediality
hough formulated with reference to epic poetry and tragedy, Aristotle’s contention is that the actual goal of all arts is to imitate reality.4 In an Aristotelian sense,
mimesis does not mean simply the faithful reproduction of the outer appearance
of something in the sense of a copy. Instead, Aristotle expanded “imitation” to the
category of the possible and the probable.5
Aristotle’s view thus directly opposes the verdict of his teacher Plato (427–
347 BC), who rejected art due to the artwork’s being “at the third remove from
reality,” the mere “representation … of an apparition.”6 For him, the image itself
was subject to the “deceptive illusoriness” of representations that were only
“reflections … not real things,”7 a reservation that would have great consequences
for later aesthetic discourse. In this, Plato differentiated between mímesis
eikastiké, the faithful copying of reality, and mímesis phantastiké, the deceptive
depiction of reality.8 Despite Plato’s verdict, the Aristotelian definition of the
being of art, its essence, as mimesis, and the parallelization of the arts, would have
far-reaching consequences for art-theoretical discourse, from the Renaissance to
the Modern era. The concept of mimesis or imitatio naturae provided a fundamental formulation of the purpose and possibilities of painting and thereby also
of visual simulation.
Architecture’s visual simulation, more so than any other form of depiction,
rests on the principle of imitating nature.9 As faithful as possible it aims for a
depiction of an actual or future reality by means of aesthetic illusion – or, precisely, through “pre-tense and re-production.”10 The original meaning of simulatio
as the “feigned appearance of a thing,” is just as central to the understanding of
visual simulation as the other meanings attributed to it, such as “deception” or
4 Seneca: Letters to Lucilius, VII, 65.3 likewise refers—“Omnis ars naturae imitatio est” (All art is imitation of nature)—to the mimetic nature of the arts.
5 Aristotle: Poetics, 1451b.
6 Plato: The Republic, 598a–b.
7 Ibid., 596e.
8 Plato: Sophist, 236b, 264c; Plato: The Republic, 602c–d. In the latter, Plato gives reasons for his critique of art’s mimetic nature.
9 The present article is limited to the discussion of the concept of simulation in the sense of a visual
representation of architecture or the visualization of its ideas and concepts.
10 See the editorial to the present volume.
15
even “hypocrisy.”11 The productivity of visual simulation is found in its mimetic
potential, as well as in the impact on the beholder of its illusory appearance, the
illusion. Seen in this way, depictions of visual simulations must measure up to no
less than Parrhasius’ curtain!
Imitatio naturae as a category in the modern understanding of art
The art of the Renaissance, at the latter years, devoted itself to depicting reality as
faithfully as possible. A prerequisite for this was a fundamental change in the
understanding of the picture in Italian painting in the transition from the Middle
Ages to the Modern era. The painters of the 14th century, starting with Giotto di
Bondone (1267/75?–1337) and his successors, discovered three-dimensionality in
painting. The viewer was no longer intended to experience an image as an autonomous ordering system based on medieval patterns, but as an excerpt from
reality, as verosimile, that is, verisimilar: the visual experience of the picture
should match that of reality.12
The painter, architect, and biographer Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) elevated
imitatio naturae to the foremost challenge for artists of his era and thereby the
main theme of early modern art theory and production. According to Vasari, the
most elemental principle for the emergence of the work is disegno, which describes the depiction of the idea, as well as the form of the artwork, in the medium
of the drawing, thereby attributing a substantial role to the artist’s technical
drawing skills. Thus, ceaseless exercise in disegno should lead to constant improvement and consistently truer depictions, in the sense of the most faithful imitation
of nature.13 The assumption of constant progress in artistic development was also
fundamental to his artist biographies Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e
architettori, published in 1550 and 1568 (2nd and extended edition), with
Michelangelo’s art placed at the peak (1475–1564). Vasari’s disegno thus makes
11 The latin simulatio is derived from the adjective similis and its verb simulare/simulo and means
“appearance” and “ deception”. G. Karl Ernst Georges: Ausführliches Lateinisch-Deutsches Handwörterbuch, Darmstatdt 1999, pp. 2678–2679.
12 Eloquent evidence of this is Boccaccio’s description of Giotto’s art in his commentary to the Divina
Commedia cf. Giovanni Boccaccio: Commento alla “Divina Commedia,” ed. Domenico Guerri, Bari 1918,
p. 72.
13 Giorgio Vasari: Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1658,
eds. Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 6 vols., Florence 1966–1987, vol. IV, p. 5. See also Wolfgang
Kemp: “Disegno. Beiträge zu Geschichte des Begriffs zwischen 1547 und 1607,” in: Marburger Jahrbuch
für Kunstwissenschaft, 1974, vol. XIX, pp. 219–240.
16
Thomas Hänsli | Parrhasius’s Curtain: Visual Simulation’s Mimesis and Mediality
direct terminological reference to the architectural theory texts of Leon Battista
Alberti and Vitruvius,14 and thereby to drawing as a medium for depicting and
designing architecture.15
The rationalization of mimesis: Alberti’s “finestra aperta”
The decisive requirement for a truly faithful depiction of reality, and likewise perhaps the most important achievement of Renaissance art, was the discovery of a
central, linear perspective.16 The Florentine architect and sculptor Filippo
Brunelleschi (1377–1446) is credited with its discovery, and the two visual experiments he performed at the Baptistery and Palazzo Vecchio in Florence between
1410 and 1420. For the first experiment, Brunelleschi painted a small panel of the
Baptistery, across from a set point in front of the main gate of the Cathedral of
Santa Maria del Fiore, in such a way that the painted picture coincided with what
was seen in reality. He bored a hole through the center of the panel so that the
painted picture could be viewed from behind, through this small aperture, with
the help of a mirror held in front of it.17 This simple arrangement made it possible for the observer to compare the painted depiction of the Baptistery with reality, and bring these views into correspondence. By virtue of its being conceived
with perspective, Brunelleschi’s painted panel had a proportional relationship
comparable to that of reality. As a reliable depiction of an existing reality, it thus
achieved its own, rational validity, as it were. Linear perspective had thus come
into existence as a comprehensible geometric method of rational depiction of
reality, and with that the medieval pictorial order was superseded.18
14 Giorgio Vasari, see note 13, vol. II, p. 43 and also Giorgio Vasari: Einführung in die Künste der Architektur, Bildhauerei und Malerei, ed. Matteo Burioni, Berlin 2006, p. 10.
15 Alberti: De re aedificatoria, I, I. On this, see also Werner Oechslin: “Lineamenta,” in: archi, 1999,
pp. 14–17.
16 Erwin Panofsky: “Die Perspektive als ‘Symbolische Form,’” in: Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg
(1924/25), 1927, pp. 258–330 (published in English as: Perspective as Symbolic Form, New York 1997);
Richard Krautheimer: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Princeton monographs in art and archaeology, vol. 31, Princeton
1970; Samuel Y. Edgerton Jr.: The Renaissance Rediscovery of Linear Perspective, New York 1975.
17 Cf. Samuel Y. Edgerton Jr., see note 16, for the reconstruction of the experiment.
18 For the meaning of proportionality in perspective construction, see Rudolf Wittkower: “Brunelleschi
and ‘Proportion in Perspective,’” in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1953, vol. 16,
p. 275ff. For the context above and the construction method used by Brunelleschi, see Frank Büttner:
“Rationalisierung der Mimesis. Anfänge der konstruierten Perspektive bei Brunelleschi und Alberti,” in:
Mimesis und Simulation, eds. Andreas Kablitz and Gerhard Neumann (Litterae, vol. 52), Freiburg im
Breisgau 1998, pp. 55–87.
17
Fig. 2: Masaccio (Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai, 1401–prior to 1428):
Fresco of the Holy Trinity, Florence, Santa Maria Novella Church, c. 1427.
18
Thomas Hänsli | Parrhasius’s Curtain: Visual Simulation’s Mimesis and Mediality
The fresco of the Holy Trinity by the painter Masaccio (1401–prior to 1428)
in the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella is perhaps the most impressive
example of a depiction designed according to the new principles of linear perspective. In an inversion of the principle devised by Brunelleschi, the fresco
shows fictive chapel architecture represented on the church’s side aisle wall. The
crucifixion scene shown, the Holy Trinity, Mary and John the Baptist, as well as
the two benefactor figures shown from the side, meld seamlessly as well into the
pictorial space as into the real space of the church aisle. The correct perspectival
projection of the “feigned appearance” on the church wall lends the event a
moment of the “possible,” so that the beholder tends to see the illusion as reality.
Masaccio’s Trinity fresco takes advantage of the linear perspective’s productiveness in the sense of a simulating, visual expansion of real architectural
space. [Fig. 2]
The humanist, theorist, architect, and painter Leon Battista Alberti (1404–
1472) was responsible for the theoretical mediation of a reliable perspective
method, in his treatise on painting entitled Della Pittura.19 Based on an understanding of the image, such as Giotto di Bondone’s, for example, Alberti was now
able to also grasp the image literally as an excerpt from reality, describing it as a
finestra aperta, a window opened in space. The space of the beholder should flow
seamlessly into the pictorial space; the space of the beholder and that of the
painting were thus, in geometric terms, one and the same. Alberti’s process,
which was later called costruzione legittima, meant the construction of linear perspective as an orthogonal cut through the observer’s visual pyramid, and thereby
the perfect analogy to the human sense of sight.20 This allowed him more than
simply a precise and practical way to accurately reproduce reality in terms of perspective and proportion in a painting. It also, conversely, permitted the projection of any fictional pictorial space he wanted onto the painting surface. Alberti
19 Leon Battista Alberti: “Della Pittura (1436),” in: Opere volgari, ed. Cecil Grayson, 3 vols., Bari 1973.
20 Erwin Panofsky: “Die Erfindung der verschiedenen Distanzkonstruktionen in der malerischen
Perspektive,” in: Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaften, 1925, vol. XLV, pp. 84–86; Cecil Grayson:
“L. B. Alberti’s ‘costruzione legittima,’” in: Italian Studies, 1964, vol. 19, pp. 14–27.
19
Fig. 3: Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528): Illustration of a perspectival drawing utensil, from: Vnderweysung der Messkunst mit
dem Zirckel vnd richtscheyt, Nuremberg 1538.
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Thomas Hänsli | Parrhasius’s Curtain: Visual Simulation’s Mimesis and Mediality
thereby provided the necessary requirements for visual simulation of space, and
paved the way for the creation of pictures that no longer had to be aligned solely
with reality.21 Alberti’s finestra aperta would soon be developed further in a number of ways, for example, by Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer. [Fig. 3]
The heightened degree of illusion that the central perspective allowed soon
influenced the visual depiction of architecture: based on the finestra aperta model,
an attempt was made to dissolve the borders of space through the targeted opening of pictorial fields and guide the observer’s gaze into the distance. The development of an illusionist depiction of architecture in the Renaissance is closely
associated with the northern Italian painter and engraver Andrea Mantegna
(1430–1506). In service to the Mantuan court of the Gonzaga family, he created the
Camera Picta (1465–74), one of the first works of illusionist architectural depiction, cleverly employing the connection of real architecture with architectural
depiction in frescoes. The closed architecture of the relatively small space is dissolved in a fictive, illusionist loggia architecture, which serves as the literal frame
for the depicted dynasty scene at the court of the Gonzaga family. Mantegna’s abilities culminated in the fresco of a faked circular ceiling opening in the center of
the room. Framed by painted stucco and fruit garlands, it seems to open up a view
of the heavens. Other equally famous examples from the 16th century, for example, the Sala delle Prospettive (1516–17) by Baldassarre Peruzzi (1481–1536) in the
Roman Villa Farnesina (1516–17), and the Vatican’s Sala Clementina (1595) by Giovanni Alberti (1558–1601), use the suggestive possibilities of quadratura painting
in a similar way.22
21 Panofsky, see note 16, recognized in his seminal article the meaning of perspective for Renaissance
art as a “symbolic form” in the sense of Ernst Cassirer.
22 In Peruzzi’s biography, Vasari reports with a certain pleasure that even Titian had succumbed to the
deception of Peruzzi’s perspectives: “… And I remember how I guided Cavaliere Titian, a highly admired
and distinguished painter to view this work, and in no way did he want to believe that it was painting …” cf.
Giorgio Vasari: Das Leben des Bramante und des Peruzzi, ed. by Sabine Feser, Berlin 2007, p. 42. [author’s
italics]
21
Rhetoricizing the artwork and deceiving the beholder, “ti fan vedere ciò
che non vedi”
Baroque art, which made full use of the whole range of painting’s illusionist
potential and the effects of deceptive illusoriness on the beholder, would also
ground it theoretically. For example, the programmatic document Lo inganno de
gl’occhi published in 1625 by the theorist, painter, and architect Pietro Accolti
(1579–1642)23 contains an introduction to the fundamentals of geometric as well
as visual perspective. The primary goal of his text, as the title suggests, is the
intentional deception of the beholder. One of the most influential representatives of illusionist depiction was Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709), painter, Jesuit architect, and author of a two-volume treatise on perspective.24 His main work, the ceiling fresco in the nave of the church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome, depicts the
Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius (1688–1694).25 Here, the instrument of perspectivebased depiction is exploited to the fullest extent: an illusory architecture spanning several stories continues the subdivision of the church space with such
artifice that the transition from real to illusory architecture can be discerned only
with great difficulty. The reality of the real church space continues in the “deceptive illusoriness” of the fictive architecture, giving beholders the illusion of a
church room that opens at the top. Pozzo’s treatise on perspective leaves no
doubts as to the intended effects of his art: “inganno,” intentionally deceiving the
beholder.26 As possible uses for his methods, he cited specific situations in which
the means or the circumstances precluded built architecture: in other words, he
named the simulation of architecture as deceptive illusion.27 [Fig. 4]
23 Pietro Accolti: Lo inganno de gl’occhi, Florence 1625.
24 Andrea Pozzo: Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum, Pars I/II. Rome 1693/1700.
25 The fresco marked both the peak and end of a series of famous Roman ceiling paintings, such as
Pietro da Cortona’s Divina providentia in the Palazzo Barberini, Guercino’s Aurora in the Casino
Ludovisi, and Gaulli’s fresco Triumph of the Name of Jesus in the Gesù.
26 Andrea Pozzo: Perspectiva pictorum, Pars I. Ad lectorem, “L’arte della prospettiva con ammirabile
diletto inganna … l’occhio.” (‘Perspective-based art deceives to the eye’s great pleasure.’)
27 Andrea Pozzo: Perspectiva pictorum: Pars I. Respondetur objectioni, “… essendo la prospettiva una
mera fintione del vero.” (‘Perspective is a pure deception of reality.’) This is especially evident in the illusory cupola adjacent to the nave, see Andrea Pozzo, note 24: Pars II. figs. 64, 71, 91.
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Thomas Hänsli | Parrhasius’s Curtain: Visual Simulation’s Mimesis and Mediality
It is of particular significance that it was in the Baroque era that the effect of
deceptive illusion would become so interesting for both artists and clients.28
Under the influence of the Baroque theory of rhetoric, persuasion of the beholder – persuasio – would become one of the main concerns of both art theory and
production of the era. To engage in this visual persuasion, art – analogous to
speech – should evoke aesthetic pleasure and marvel, diletto and maraviglia. Art
was also intended to evoke amazement and, where it helped mediate content, to
shock.29 In the end, Conte Emanuele Tesauro (1592–1675) from Turin, a scholar
of philosophy, poetry, and rhetoric, was thus able to detect evidence of an artist’s
genius in his or her deception of the beholder through perspective. Tesauro
equated use of perspective with greater astuteness, mainly due to its potential for
deception: perspective is, accordingly, extremely astute, because it can represent
to the beholder that which cannot be represented: “… ti fan vedere ciò che non
vedi.”30
28 See the seminal article by Rensselaer W. Lee: “Ut pictura poesis. The Humanistic Theory of Painting,”
in: Art Bulletin, 1940, vol. 22, pp. 197–269; and for further thoughts on this, Thomas Hänsli: “‘Omnis in
unum’ – Inganno, Argutezza und Ingegno als kunsttheoretische Kategorien bei Emanuele Tesauro und
Andrea Pozzo,” in: Wissensformen, Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin, Zurich 2008, pp. 166–179.
29 Francesco Bocchi: “Eccellenza del San Giorgio di Donatello (1570),” in: Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento
fra Manierismo e Controriforma, ed. Paola Barocchi, Bari 1962, p. 190ff. sums up the effect of the statue of
Saint George by Donatello in these terms.
30 Emanuele Tesauro: Il cannocchiale aristotelico, Turin 1670, p. 89, “argutissime finalmente sono le
optiche; lequali … ti fan vedere ciò che non vedi.” (‘Ultimately, the visual perspective is extremely astute,
which is capable of representing that which cannot be represented.’)
23
Fig. 4: Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709): Fresco of the Apotheosis of St. Ignatius, Rome, Sant’ Ignazio
Church, nave (1688–94).
24