The Deception of Colour : Digital Reconstruction of finctae et pictae Architectures

Over the centuries our gaze incessantly fell upon fine under-paintings which, imitating architectural elements and classical and vegetal decorations, have favoured the illusion of depth and space in a built space. Mastering sophisticated techniques of rendering created “areas” of color perceived as real, erasing the traditional boundaries between what is real and what appears to our senses, and raising interest in an illusory three-dimensionality enclosed in a two-dimensional material reality. The two suggested examples, the first regarding an ecclesiastical context and representing a religious message aimed at “educating” the faithful through the depiction of well-known martyrdom episodes, the second regarding a private context in which emerges a clear impression of splendour in an attempt to ennoble the austere front of a Palladian Villa, have a common denominator: they both increase the physical space creating an illusory one in which the narration conveys ethical, moral and religious messages. In both cases the perspective restitution applied to the high-resolution orthophoto, the first obtained through a traditional photographic approach, the second through an accurate photography survey (Agisoft software) allowed a reconstruction of the finctae et pictae architectures. Their virtual clones pointed out visible and partly-non-visible spaces, verifying their accuracy of execution, their technical and geometrical complexity and their visual and fruitive strategies.