Baroque churches of the 17th century are places that tend to create spaces of illusions and counter-illusions for the faithful. In particular, the trompe l’oeil ceilings, true “elevation operators” such as those by Andrea Pozzo or Gian Antonio Fumiani, will be investigated as immersive spaces in order to understand the anxieties of illusions they produced: i.e., the anxieties of a new perspective without a horizon, of a spatialisation of the infinite, of the brutal counter-illusion when seen from a point other than the ideal one. At the same time, we will deal with the anxieties to which this Baroque immersion responded, transporting the faithful body and soul into a union between earth and sky. Understanding these spaces as intermedial environments will allow us to better situate the perceptive and corporeal experience of the spectator and its theological implications.
Luca Acquarelli is Associate Professor at the University of Lille (France). His research has been developing in the field of visual culture with an interdisciplinary approach between theories of art and image, cinema and media theory, sociosemiotics and philosophy. He is the author of Il fascismo e l’immagine dell’impero. Retoriche e culture visuali, 2022, which offers an in-depth analysis of the relationship between image and power in fascist propaganda linked to the idea of empire. His forthcoming book Pour une théorie de l’immersion. Du trompe l’œil aux réalités virtuelles traces the archaeology of the immersive image, from trompe l’œil to virtual realities.