Perspective cubes

(personal archive-carbon paper, graphite, pen-Oct'11)

 The butterfly 

(personal archive-model 12x12cm/white cardboard, black reflective plastic sheet,wire-Oct'11)

perspective from the viewpoint

closest view

sideview

 

model analysis

The theory of the visual cone

"The theory to which I refer is of course that of perspective, to which M.H Pirenne’s Optics, Painting and Photography provides an authoritative guide. It is based on the fact that light is normally propagated along straight lines and that we can therefore work out for any object in space what light rays from its surface will reach a given point. This is the optical theory of the visual cone or visual pyramid which became relevant to pictorial representation in the Italian Renaissance when such a representation was first defined as a cross-section through a visual cone…no doubt that it was the ancient Greeks who first assigned to the artist this role of an imaginary eye-witness, and it is equally clear that Euclidean geometry would have provided them with the tools for working out the implication of this demand-to what extend this was actually done is,however, still a matter of debate."

 PERSPECTIVE: GEOMETRICAL PROOF AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PUZZLE, E.H Gombrich, The Image and the Eye

 Durer or Duerer, Albrecht (1471-1528) (after)

Instrument of Mathematical Precision for Designing Objects in Perspective, illustration from 'Science and Literature in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance', written and engraved by Paul Lacroix, 1878 (engraving) (b/w photo)

The visual cone. From B. Taylor, New principles of Linear perspective (London, 1715)

About perspective..

“Visual Perspective”, by definition,(Chambers 21st Century Dictionary) is the way that the observer perceives objects in relation to one another, especially with regard to the way they seem smaller the more distant they are.It is simply the overlapping of objects.

In art ,perspective is the method of creating an impression of spatial depth, either of a flat surface or in relief.

The principles of perspective were first applied by the Italian painter Masaccio(im.1), whilst Filippo Brunelleschi was the first to discover this technique.(im.2)

Masaccio, Tommaso (1401-28) , Crucifixion, 1426 (tempera on panel)

Brunelleschi, Filippo (1377-1446) ,View of the Nave, 1425-46 (photo)

"In ancient Greece and in Renaissance Europe, artists have striven systematically, step by step to approximately their approximately their images to the visible world and achieve likenesses that might deceive the eye… The ancient world certainly saw the evolution of art mainly as a technical progress, the conquest of that skill in mimesis, in imitation, that was considered the basis of art.” The image and the eye, Gombrich

Anamorphosis & Viewpoint

 "The Ambassadors" of Hans Holbein, is a good example of how our physical location, the viewpoint from which we "look at" the painting can influence our perception of what is depicted. In this case, the "right" viewpoint reveals the anamorphic skull which is visible from a very acute angle.

 Hans Holbein, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve("The Ambassadors"), 1533

"To see this long streak of paint as a projection of a normal death's-head is beyond the power of human perception; furthermore, its spatial environment in the painting supports no such view. John Locke has said of such pictures that they are "not descernible in that state to belong more to the name man, or Caesar, than to the name baboon, or Pompey." 

Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception p.260

"Indeed Rennaissance artists ans their successors used this indeterminacy of the view from a sigle station point for the construction of a visual trick of this kind-the so-called anamorphosis, a picture that looks distorted when seen head-on, but which appears to right itself when seen through a peephole from the side. The sideway view results in an illusion, not so much of a reality as of a differently oriented painting which tends to be seen as a hovering phantom."

E.H. Gombrich, The Image and the Eye p.191

"A hovering phantom", something that is there and absent at the same time.

Body movement & Vision

...As I was trying to discover what is that I am interested in, Ι found myself recalling places and images I have seen, attempting to understand what is it so special about them that my memory retains them.

The building that came to my mind was Rotonda Foschini, part of the communal theatre of Ferrara. I first went there when I was in my first year in architecture school.
I still can remember my tutors saying: "go, go and lie down"(?) when entering the courtyard.And so I did..
I deliberately chose these two different photos which, in my opinion, suggest two quite different views of the same building.
What struck me then, while contemplating these pictures, is the most obvious thing. Our physical location, which results from our conscious body movement, affects the way we're experiencing space through our vision.

 Meaning... You "have to" lie down to get this amazing perspective...but then again you might not..

 Antonio Foschini, Cosimo Morelo, "Rotonda Foschini", Ferrara Italy 700ad

"...It is also true that vision is attached to movement. We see only what we look at...All my changes of place figure on principle in a corner of my landscape;they are carried over onto a map of visible."

Merlau Ponty, Eyes and mind