Entry Four - Being an introduction to perspective and more of those definitions

Few people would disagree that the Renaissance was one of the greatest periods of artistic achievement in the history of mankind. So many artistic discoveries and methods were made during this time that its influence on contemporary artists is immeasurable.

In my own personal work I am continually floored by how closely what I do and the methods in which I am taught parallel those of the great Renaissance masters. From foundation arts to graphic design and illustration it seems everything I do has some basis or beginning in the Renaissance.

As a student of sequential art the lineage of what we do as artists is clearly traceable back to the time of the Renaissance and beyond. Yet one our greatest tools in telling stories was discovered during the Renaissance and has not changed all that much. It is called Perspective and for many beginning and advanced artists it is one of the most difficult things to learn, but its power to represent the three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional surface cannot be denied.

We have a saying in sequential art that you can draw your figures as cartoony and unrealistic as you like, but if you don’t have believable backgrounds and environments then you can sell the image. The key to selling the image is perspective.

So what is perspective?

According to the Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms perspective is the method of representing a three-dimensional object, or a particular volume of space, on a flat or nearly flat surface.[1] The Thames & Hudson Dictionary goes on to classify the two major types of perspective, atmospheric and linear.

Atmospheric perspective is a means of representing distance and recession in painting, based on the way the atmosphere affects the human eye. Outlines become less precise, small details are lost, hues become noticeably more blue, colours in general become paler, color contrasts are less pronounced. These effects had already been observed by Fresco painters of the Roman period but on the whole are most typical of Naturalistic European landscape painting from the 16th century onwards. There is also an attempt at atmospheric perspective in Japanese ink painting.
Centralized perspective is linear perspective in which the eye is drawn towards a single vanishing point in the centre of the composition, usually on the horizon line. Linear perspective uses real or suggested lines converging on a vanishing point or points on the horizon or at eye level, and linking receeding planes as they do.[2]

What a mouthful! It is ironic how lengthy and difficult it can be to describe or define perspective and yet show someone a picture using perspective and they get it immediately!



[1] Edward Lucie-Smith, The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms, 2nd. Ed. (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2003), 166
[2] Ibid