Japanese painter Kazuo Torigoe creates incredible oil paintings on copper that make you wonder what in the painting is real.  On Torigoe’s website, lilies and hydrangeas seem to outgrow their frames. Luscious plums, apples, and two halves of a ripe fig look so appetizing that they make your mouth water.  Some of his paintings contain carefully arranged playing cards, candles, and beetles, creating small allegorical worlds.  Torigoe’s painting “XIV III MMXIX” combines many of these elements, but all in one frame. It’s a fantastical painting that won him the Best Trompe L’oeil Award at the 14th International ARC Salon (2019–2020). Delightful Illusions Trompe l’oeil, French for “deceives the eye,” is an artistic technique whereby objects appear real on a two-dimensional surface. The technique has been used for centuries in painting, architecture, and the decorative arts to delight and astonish viewers, sometimes with comedic effect. According to Pliny, two painters in the …