The Deformation: Attention and Discernment in Catholic Reformation Art and Architecture

During the Catholic Reformation, patrons, artists, architects, and viewers, especially in Rome, were strongly drawn to visual and spatial distortions or “deformations”—works of art and architecture that were designed to be visually incomprehensible, at least initially. From Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome to the attention-grabbing prospettiva in the city’s Palazzo Spada and the anamorphoses that define the corridors and walls of Minim and Jesuit buildings, The Deformation explores what this intriguing phenomenon reveals about contemporary religious belief, optics, and the natural sciences, as well as wider questions about attention and discernment.

Failing to conform to an established ideal, deformations required a “reformation” to achieve that ideal. Anamorphic deformations, for example, could only be reformed into clarity when viewed from a particular angle or through a special mirror. Susanna Berger examines how deformations were experienced by beholders, and how they were embraced or opposed by critics. The book shows how deformations and related works—whether altar tabernacles, ephemeral religious architecture, churches, monumental sundials, colonnades with accelerated perspective, illusionistic frescoes, turned ivories, or painted anamorphoses—focused observers’ attention on theological mysteries and the social power and sophistication of patrons. The book’s rich illustrations include two gatefolds and some anamorphic images that can be seen without distortion by using an included reflective insert as a mirror.

Looking at writings as well as visual works in multiple artistic media not typically considered in relation to each other, The Deformation offers a new interpretation of deformation that highlights the delay between perception and discernment.

Susanna Berger is associate professor of art history and philosophy at the University of Southern California. She is the author of The Art of Philosophy: Visual Thinking in Europe from the Late Renaissance to the Early Enlightenment (Princeton).