The Deception of the Visible

Summary (the full essay is in Italian). Alberto Agazzani traces how optical devices, from the camera obscura onwards, changed the way painters see and depict reality, all the way to today’s hyperrealism. Realism as a mere copy of reality does not exist in painting, he argues: every image is a mental construction shaped by its time. Unlike the cool, pop-minded American Photorealism born in the 1960s, Italian hyperrealism is rooted in the great Western tradition and turned inwards. The essay closes with the painters of this line, among them David De Biasio. (Art Dossier, September 2010, Giunti Editore)