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Early Perspective Painting and the Beginnings of Projective
Geometry
The cone of visual rays has its vertex at the eye. A perspective painting is a section of this cone
by a plane.
Devices
But isn’t the perspective construction something to do with
vanishing points??
That seems like a different idea!
The Tribute Money
Perspective in The Tribute Money
The Arnolfini Marriage
Perspective in The Arnolfini Marriage
Draw a square in perspective:
Construction lines
Horizontals
Last construction line
Why is this construction correct?
DE:BC = AE:AC = HE:GC
But BC = GC, so DE = HE
A Pavimento
…degraded square
Diagonal construction
Orthogonals
Transverals
A ‘degraded’ octagon
A hexagonal well
Heads
The Baptism of Chris
The flagellation of Christ
Perspective in the Flagellation of Christ
Paolo Uccello
A misuse of perspective?
Two pencils of lines
These are EQUIVALENT in projective geometry: one can be transformed into the other.
The Ambassadors
Art and optics
• A recent symposium considered the possibility that Renaissance perspective effects did not require geometrical construction after all! The suggestion is that artists used lenses and mirrors to project images, and trace them.
• http://www.artandoptics.com
