Too Good to Be True: The Excess of Mimes in Fictive Tapestries

but hardly known: the display of fictive tapestries in churches and palaces (c. 1520-1650). These "fake" tapestries consist of narrative scenes framed by borders imitating real fabrics. They appear to hang on the walls on which they are actually frescoed. By doing so, they constitute a new (deceiving) medium with its own medial and communicative properties. Painted tapestries are usually integrated into vast decorative schemes. In order to clearly identify them among these large murals, some painters have exaggerated the textile materiality. They could, for example, emphasize the suspension system by painting illusionist hooks or even adding real nails above the fictive tapestries, while they are actually invisible with genuine hangings. Borders could also be made oversize, widely curling in an unnatural way. How do these deceiving fabric environments affect the visual and auditory perception of the beholders? What are the effects of the gap between expectations (mobile, pleated fabrics absorbing the sound) and reality (bare walls reverbing echo)? By trying hard to pretend to be tapestries, does the excess of mimesis expose the pictorial illusion in a paradoxical way?