Metapainting  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Reverse Side of a Painting (1670) by Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts, an example of metapainting.

Ancient Rome (1757) by Giovanni Paolo Panini, a real painting depicting imaginary paintings of actual Roman antiquities.

Related e

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The term metapainting refers to paintings that reflect on the nature of paintings, paintings on painting as it were.

To this category belong such paintings as Reverse Side of a Painting (1670), Las Meninas (1656) by Diego Velázquez and Magritte's The Treachery Of Images (1928-29).

More examples

• "Time smoking a picture" by William Hogarth. It is a painting within a painting and breaks the fourth wall.
• Brushstrokes by Roy Lichtenstein

See also

• The Art of Painting by Vermeer
• Painting within a painting
• Droste effect
• Gallery painting
• Meta
• Metafiction
• Painting
• Painting consciousness
• The contest of Zeuxis and Parrhasius

Further reading

• The Self-Aware Image: An Insight into Early Modern Meta-Painting (1996) by Victor I. Stoichita