Fascinating Experiments in the Development of Perspective in Paintings
Exploring the artistic techniques of three-dimensional illusion
We are all accustomed to the idea that objects further away appear smaller than objects closer to us. You can raise your hand to the sky and cover the moon with your thumbnail — not because the moon is smaller than your thumb but because it appears smaller.
So habitual is the perceptive truth of this that we tend not to notice it in our daily lives. It is perhaps only when we attend an art class and try to draw an object with a life-like appearance that we realise how beguiling the rules of perspective can be.
It’s not only that objects get smaller the further away they are, it’s also that objects change shape.
When seen face-on, for instance, a square might be a regular shape with predictable angles, but turn it so the face sits at an angle and its two-dimensional footprint changes radically.
There is good evidence to suggest that the rules that govern perspective were well understood at least as far back as the 1st century BC by Roman artists. Some argue that the Ancient Greeks knew its laws too. Yet this knowledge was largely lost, and only fully re-emerged in the 15th century. The artworks that capture the early…
