Repoussoir

A repoussoir (French repousser " repel " ) refers to a placed in the foreground of a painting or a photograph object that caused by its large display and dark colors in relation to the rest of the objects represented a gain of the low impression.

The repoussoir in paintings

The repoussoir was especially in the paintings of the Renaissance, a technical trick, which rather suggests room depth and points to it as a genuine producer. The picture itself shows no significant depth dimension except for one behind the other - graduation.

Figural marginal phenomena that have the sole function to draw the viewer's gaze into the depths are referred to as " repoussoir figures". A well-known example is the fresco The Borgo Fire by Raphael in the Vatican, 1514 On the far right of the image a woman is depicted with jug on the head from behind. ; it seems to go into the image depth. Another recent example is Umberto Boccioni's painting La strada entra nella casa from 1911 in which a woman shown in back view from an elevated point of view, a balcony, the buzz on the street watching. It leads the viewer's eye into the depth of the image.