A Ghostly Feature

Wendell Castle's Ghost Clock from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery is a masterwork of trompe l'oeil, or "fool the eye" illusionism.

Ghost Clock … is definitely not what it appears to be—a grandfather clock covered with a white sheet. Rather, it is a remarkable wood sculpture.

The entire piece was handcarved in 1985 from a single block of laminated mahogany. With astonishing accuracy, Wendell Castle replicated every protrusion and every drapery fold down to the smallest detail. To complete the visual deception, he bleached the wooden "sheet" white and stained the "clock" dark brown.

But Ghost Clock is more than a virtuoso sculptural illusion: it is haunted with poetic meaning. With no inner mechanism, the clock clearly cannot tell time. Instead, it symbolizes the end of time—the mystery of death.

Source: National Museum of American Art (CD-ROM) (New York and Washington D.C.: MacMillan Digital in cooperation with the National Museum of American Art, 1996).

Pictured: Wendell Castle, born 1932, Ghost Clock, 1985, bleached Honduras mahogany, 86 1/4 x 24 1/2 x 15 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program.