At the Guimet Museum, Korean trompe-l’oeil libraries

The exhibition highlights an unexpected motif: imaginary libraries, where books, objects and surfaces are rendered with enough precision to unsettle the eye. On a folding screen, the image is not merely decorative; it plays with distance, shadow and the illusion of depth.

For artists and for anyone interested in painting and drawing, this is a revealing subject because it shows how an image can create space without relying on classical perspective. The folding screen becomes an active support, its panels breaking up the composition and making the viewer aware of how the eye moves across the work.

Developed on the Korean Peninsula between the 18th and 20th centuries, the genre also points to painting’s ability to focus on everyday objects and on the culture of books. By depicting shelves, bindings and accessories, these works show how knowledge itself can be made visible through painting.