Take a look at this painting that appears on the screen briefly in the YouTube video I’m linking to. Notice how the servant appears to look knowingly at the viewer while his master gorges on food.
Can you provide any other examples of “high art,” such as sculpture or paintings or what have you, that breaks the fourth wall, in the way that this painting appears to?
This scene from “The Help”
Self-Portrait as a Mocker surely qualifies
If the Peasant in Pieter Breughels the Elder’s The {easant and the Nest Robber isn’t pointing the Nest Robber out to the viewer of the painting, who is he doing it for?
Similarly,the St. John the Baptist by Leonardo that article references also appears to be gesturing for the benefit of the viewer.
I just wanted to add, I wouldn’t classify Regency-era caricature prints as “High Art”. They’re more a combo of political cartoon and moralizing comic book.
Would classical instances of trompe l’oeil qualify? It’s not exactly a subject in the medium peeking back at the viewer, but rather the painting itself is playing with the viewer. I’m particularly thinking of something like “Interior of the Oude Kerk in Delft”.
Dude on the far right is a self-portrait of the artist staring back at the viewer.
This painting not only breaks the fourth wall, it breaks your brain
DaVinci’s Madonna of the Rocks.
IIRC, the babies are (left to right) Jesus and John the Baptist.
My favorite joke regarding this is from Craig Swanson’s Perspicuity strip (now sadly defunct)
Susannah and the Elders by Guercino. The old man on the left warns the viewer to keep quiet, implicating us as a participant in the voyeurism.
That is not “ceci n’est pas une pipe”.
Goya’s “Family of the Infante Don Juan.” Check out the man with the bandage.
Note that he’s not looking at the artist. He’s looking at you (as are several others).
Dejeuner Sur l’Herbe by Manet.
https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/le-dejeuner-sur-lherbe-edouard-manet
It’s kind of the opposite of @journeyman_southpaw’s proposal
Another trompe l’oeil:
Escaping Criticism by Pere Borrell del Caso
Not obvious (especially since the book showed it in a frame, which was never intended), but “The Goldfinch” was designed to be hung high on a wall the same color as the painting’s background.
Trying to remember a painting at Polesden Lacey, I came across this repeat offender: Cornelis de Man:
http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1246498
and
j
Not sure why the first link is just…a link. Sorry.
In Las Meninas, Margarita Teresa, Velázquez and one of the dwarves all look out towards the viewer. That’s probably because the viewers are supposed to be the King and the Queen, who are having their portrait painted and who, because they are her parents, Margarita Teresa finds more interesting.
My personal theory is that Mona Lisa just ripped an SBD, hence the smile.
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