I tried to run my hand along the bridges stone walls to feel the crunchy texture of every unique rock, yet my expectations were dashed when I touched the smoothness of a concrete slab. Instead each “stone” was a fake, a painting, an illusion. Each rock was hand painted with meticulous shading and color. When you walk through the streets of Frederick you can’t trust your sight to determine what is real or not.
William Cochran is the artist that decorates the streets of Frederick, Md. with trompe l’oeil murals.
One of Cochran’s most celebrated tributes to Frederick is the Community Bridge Mural. The bridge is centrally located on Carroll Street by the Delaplaine Visual Arts Center and covers Carroll Creek.
The public art project was completed in 1998. The total cost of the project was $300,000. The City of Frederick contributed $122,000, the Frederick County $22,000, and Shared Vision $156,000.
Shared Vision is also a non-profit founded in 1993 by William and Theresa Cochran. William Cochran had his own foundation place the majority of the money on the community project. The non-profit was built to engage the community and build public works of art.
The Community Bridge has hidden symbols embedded throughout its walls. Cochran chose the symbols from Frederick residents’ input of what represented community to them.
The symbols of the spirit of community aren’t really embedded, but painted to look carved onto the painted stone. Some smaller examples of the symbols are the hand, the Frederick Fair, the logo for the County Commission for Women, and etc. The largest feature illusions illustrated are a female Greco sculpture, a fake fountain, a gateway, and an anamorphic projection of an archangel.
The painted medallions on the pillars of the bridge are the ideas that were suggested most often. All illustrated illusions are models of anamorphic art, and play with the technique of trompe l’oeil. Trompe l’oeil literal translation is “to deceive the eye” and is a Baroque art technique that uses paint to create three dimensional illusions.
Downtown Frederick commuters can also see other Cochran masterpieces painted around town like the “Angels in the Architecture” series.
First in the series and made in 1988 “Egress”, at 2nd and Market streets, is of a bird soaring out of a vertically stretched window.
The series includes “Earthbound”; a 1989 mural of a grayed man with shadowed wings looking out of a painted open white washed window. “Earthbound” is found at the corner of Church and Market streets and was designed by Cochran and painted with artist Paul Wilson.
The last installation in the series, completed in 1991, is “The Edge of Gravity” on the side of Griff’s Restaurant on South Market Street. “The Edge of Gravity” depicts a man dressed in a white shirt, blue pants, brown boots, and is embraced by a levitating red sash. The man is in an ethereal position with arms extended to the heavens.
Other famous examples of trompe l’oeil, but are not found in Frederick, include; “Painter with a Pipe and Book” by Gerard Dou and “Ceiling of Sant’Ignazio” by Andrea Pozzo.
Recently becoming popular and also similar to the Frederick murals is the concept of 3d pavement art. Lego Army, by Leon Keer at the Sarasota Chalk Festival 2011 in Florida, is an example of modern uses of trompe l’oeil.
As an ancient art technique and a modern marvel, the trompe l’oeil style graffiti’s and beautifies the Frederick streets with symbols of community.
Chefs d’oeuvre, Obra, Masterpieces 
