The story begins in ancient Greece, where the painter Zeuxis fooled birds with painted grapes only to be fooled himself by Parrhasius's painted curtain. This episode explores trompe l'oeil, the French term for deceiving the eye, and how the technique of creating convincing three-dimensional space on a flat surface evolved from Pompeii's painted windows through the perspective breakthroughs of the Renaissance to Baroque quadratura, Dutch still lifes, theater, cinema, fashion, and even literature.

We look at how foreshortening compresses figures on a ceiling so they appear to float above the viewer, how Andrea Pozzo painted an entire dome that only aligns from one brass disc on the floor, and how Sir James Thornhill painted shadows that trick the brain into inventing fluted columns. We also cover the painted flies of Carpaccio and de Barbari, ...