Perspective

Perspective is a technique used by artists to give a picture the illusion of depth and distance. When observing a picture done in perspective, viewers have the impression that they are looking through a window. The sides of the picture serve as the “window frame.” The scene appears to recede into the distance from a fixed point on the viewer’s side of the window.

There are two major types of perspective in Western art—aerial perspective and linear perspective. Non-Western civilizations, such as those of China and India, have also developed styles of perspective. However, the Eastern styles do not produce an effect as realistic as the Western techniques.

Aerial perspective is based on the fact that light, shade, and color change with an object’s distance from the viewer. For example, distant objects appear hazier and less sharp in outline than objects seen nearby. The sky also changes from a deep blue directly overhead to an increasingly lighter blue as it approaches the horizon. An artist creates aerial perspective by varying the color tones and the strength and sharpness of the picture’s lines.

Linear perspective is a technique for showing distance and depth through the form, size, and position of objects. Linear perspective is based on the optical illusion that parallel lines seem to converge as they recede toward a vanishing point. A vanishing point is the spot at which the parallel lines appear to meet on the horizon. Linear perspective also creates the illusion of depth by making the more distant objects smaller and placing them closer together.

Artists in ancient Greece and Rome were the first to understand the principles of both aerial and linear perspective. Both techniques were largely abandoned during the Middle Ages, which began during the A.D. 400’s. But perspective was rediscovered during the Renaissance, a cultural period that began in Italy during the 1300’s.

Interest in perspective reached its peak in the Renaissance paintings of the 1400’s and 1500’s. About 1410, the Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi painted two scenes of the city of Florence that used mathematical formulas to create perspective. His work had a great impact on Renaissance artists, who became fascinated with using perspective to achieve realism in portraying space. Leon Battista Alberti, another Italian architect, wrote On Painting (1435), the first scientific study of perspective. The Italian artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci performed many experiments that explored how the eye sees objects at a distance.