Trompe l'oeil
by Arline Dace
This is a painting done recently for me by my mother, Arline Dace. It shows a small collection of objects with particular meanings for me, set up in such a way as to look like a real shelf or recess.
This technique of painting is called trompe l'oeil, a French phrase that simply means to deceive the eye. (I find it almost impossible to remember how to spell trompe l'oeil.)
The small book with the battered leather binding was in my late grandfather's pocket during the First World War. He served with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in Basra, Mesopotamia. The book is a copy of Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam, a Sufi book which extols the drunkenness of union with God (... and then, no more of Thee and Me), but which my grandfather took to be an atheist tract.
The porcelain figurine is just something I like, and which I bought at the wrong time for more than its market value.
The Snark requires little comment from me, except that it is a Boojum, which is why it causes one softly and silently to vanish away.
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