There is a rich two-way pleasure that occurs when a painting is so realistic it deceives the viewer. We delight when our eyes are taken for a ride, if only for a moment. And the artist delights in putting off the ruse. The tradition of trompe l'oeil, translated from French as "deception of the eye," dates as far back as the Greek and Roman empires. It is reported that Rembrandt's students painted coins on the floor of his studio for the pleasure of watching him bend down to pick them up.

America fostered several of its own trompe l'oeil masters after the Civil War, as well as a distinctly American subject matter -- paper currency. These money paintings were so convincing that one artist, William Harnett, was arrested on charges of counterfeiting in 1886 (an event that did wonders for his career), and several others remained under the watchful eye of the Secret Service.

There are but a few handfuls of trompe l'oeil painters working in the United States today, and because of the tremendous time that goes into creating one painting, they are far from prolific. "Trompe l'oeil paintings are usually the little hidden gems in the back of the gallery," said artist Donald Clapper, who has been painting in the trompe l'oeil style for the past decade. Clapper said it is not unusual for a trompe l'oeil artist to put several hundred hours into one painting. At that rate it would take years to generate enough work for a solo show.

To showcase the work of contemporary trompe l'oeil artists, Clapper and artist Larry Charles formed in 2001 the Trompe l'Oeil Society of Artists. Their first group show opens today, March 1, with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. at van de Griff/Marr Gallery, 668 Canyon Road. The show, which includes the work of Clapper, Charles, Eric Conklin, Gerald Hodge, Michael Molnar, Gayle Tate and Gregory West, runs through March 28.

"I've search the country while forming this society and have found no more than 15-20 skilled trompe l'oeil artists," Clapper said during a recent telephone interview from his home in Fountain Hills, Arizona. The society now has eight members.

Trompe l'oeil distinguishes itself from other forms of realist paintings by its intent to deceive. Typically the painting depicts a vertical still life, with objects tacked or taped onto a flat surface, such as a wood panel or chalkboard. The artist's goal is to render the objects so realistically that they appear to leap off the canvas, the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Although some art schools teach classical realism, none take realism as far as trompe l'oeil, said artist Tate during a recent phone interview from his home in Laramie, Wyoming. Today's trompe l'oeil artists are self-taught and deeply indebted to American trompe l'oeil masters William Harnett (1848-1892), John Frederick Peto (1854-1907) and John Haberle (1853-1933).

Photographs of the work in this show come nowhere close to representing the realism achieved by these painters. The deception must be experienced -- and enjoyed -- firsthand.

In Clapper's Mail Order Bride, an old tintype photograph of a young woman appears so real that this reporter wanted to reach out and touch it. In Clapper's War and Peace on Mom's Cupboard Door, one would swear that the stamps on the letters are World War II vintage, even when the surface is viewed from a mere foot away. But these paintings are more than technical ahievements. The artists have woven marvelous humor and visual puns into their content. A newspaper clipping in Tate's Artist's Letter Rack is a fictitious art review of this trompe l'oeil show in Santa Fe. The article praises the show to the heavens.

In Clapper's War and Peace on Mom's Cupboard Door, an evelope is addressed to a home on "Trompe Lane." And in Gerald Hodge's Letter Rack, a yellowed and tattered fortune cookie message reads: "Your attention to detail is both a blessing and a curse."

"The value of the trompe l'oeil painting is in the idea," Tate said. "Without making it sound too easy, almost any artist who has the desire can paint this way, though it is tedious. Once a painter has overcome the technical issues, the challenge becomes conceptual -- coming up with a dynamic and interesting composition.

"To create that interest, we can tear an envelope -- burst it wide open so that it is no longer square -- or tear a drawing and show part of another drawing underneath. A short piece of string dangling off a nail adds a loose counterbalance to a composition otherwise made of squares and rectangles," Tate said, referring to the newspaper clippings, business cards, and paper currency that make up most of his paintings. "Anybody can paint squares all day long," he added. "But how do you arrange all these similar shapes, and make that interesting? It requires a sense of humor and a bizarre outlook on life."

With pride, Tate described his first trompe l'oeil painting in the 1960's. It was a fake ID for the University of Texas, created so that he could get into the Texas A&M football game with his brother. Tate made it with color pencil and watercolor, and saw the game for free.

His trompe l'oeil career then "Lay fallow," as he put it, until the 1970s, when he started painting envelopes and stamps. The idea of painting money intrigued Tate, but at the time, he didn't think he was capable of painting what he perceived to be the most difficult of trompe l'oeil subjects. "Eventually I discovered it was challenging but doable," Tate said. Since then the artist has specialized in painting paper currency and has collectors from around the world.

Many of the paintings in this show tell a story and are deeply personal. On his Blackboard -- an astonishingly real image of an old-fashioned chalkboard and frame -- Molnar painted the names of the artists who have taught and inspired him. Clapper's War and Peace on Mom's Cupboard Door shows photographs of his father while he served in World War II. The photos are tacked onto the back of a cupboard door, together with the letters written by his grandmother. "This was her private memorial, behind the cupboard door," Clapper said.

The subject matter of trompe l'oeil is nostalgic and has strayed little since Harnett's time. Old letters, stamps, photographs, money, eyeglasses and musical instruments are common motifs.

Perhaps this is because new things are not worn enough by time to have character. They are too flat, too perfect. It is the folds in the envelope and the tears in the handwritten page that bestow a three-dimensional surface and a sense of value. Someone treasured these objects, the viewer concludes; they have been kept for a reason.

Several of the artists in this show are asking whether it might be time to update their subject matter. When Tate, Clapper, Charles and Conklin come to Santa Fe for the opening, they plan to discuss where they want to take the art of trompe l'oeil. "Most of us who work in this style started off by studying Harnett and Peto," Tate said. "Harnett is the king pin of still life painting -- the standard that we shoot for. But from there, we have to move forward. It would be counterproductive for a 21st-century artist to stay in the 19th century. It is better to build on what we have learned."

Recently this reporter visited van de Griff/Marr Gallery while the paintings were being hung. A woman walked in and asked why money was taped to the paintings. Her mouth fell open when she was told that the money was painted on. Clapper was thrilled to hear the story. There could be no greater compliment to a trompe l'oeil painter, he said. The deception is complete.