Perspective from Antiquity to the Present

Human Vision and Electronic Imaging V, 2000

This paper examines the intesections between 'perspectivist optics' and linear perspective in the context of Medieval and Early Renaissance theological, philosophical and artistic works. I argue that Brunelleschi's famous perspective 'experiment' of Florence Baptistery reflected a deep theological tradition of medieval optics, rather than providing a demonstration of the principles of 'costruzione leggitma'. A key factor in this connection is the concept of 'civic theology', expressed in the sermons of Fra Antonino (bishop of Florence) and contemporary of Brunelleschi. This is evidenced in the way Brunelleschi deployed a combination of catoptrics and perspectivist geometry to register the symbolic and situational nature of the physical space of the quartiere di San Giovanni (called 'earthly paradise'), rather than demonstrate the application of an abstract (codification) of pictorial space that Alberti developed later in his De pictura. Drawing upon the writings of Nicholas Cusanus, I demonstrate that this situational understanding of pictorial representation formed part of a more general interest in the experiential nature of geometry and mathematics at this time, as we see in Cusanus' 'De Visione Dei' and 'De Beryllo'. The investigation concludes with an examination of the connections between linear perspective and photography. Using an example by Le Corbusier I argue that the situational geometries of the Ealy Renaissance were still recognised in the 20th century, in spite of the instrumentalisation of linear perspective created by the impact of Cartesian geometry.

This PhD dissertation was about Italian Art , especially about the perspective in the Italian Renaissance Painting and its influence in Ideas and Science revolution. My big concern was to demonstrate how the early painters since the twelve century were creating a new conception of space in painting then in architecture. Giotto was the first one who applied the notion of third dimension in his paintings by using chiaroscuro technics. [light and shadow]. Chiaroscuro is considered as the basic step to linear perspective used as new geometric application. However, in theory the Euclidian solid geometry attempted to do more than replicate what the human eye perceives according to the tenets of Euclidian geometry, which medieval Europeans understood as synonymous with the vision of God. My approach to Italian Renaissance painting had various points of view, but my concentration was on E.H GOMBRICH and Samuel Y. Edgerton, JR. theorems through their important published books that I got at Penn fine art library in Philadelphia/PA. In parallel Erwin Panofsky theorems about Renaissance in art in general and Italian Art particularly were the theorems ground of my opinions and views. Indeed there was a big renovation in the way the painters were composing the space, there was a move from the middle age notion of creating a painting, which was very simple without any notion of third dimension. The space was flat and the painters couldn't compose the space as if there is deepness in it. I will here ask the same question that Samuel Y. Edgerton, JR. did in his book named " The Heritage of Giotto's Geometry ". Why was capitalist Europe after 1500 the first of all civilizations in the world to develop what is commonly understood as modern science, moving rapidly ahead of the previously more sophisticated cultures of the East? Why were some of the most spectacular achievements of both the Western artistic and scientific revolutions conceived in the very same place, the Tuscan city of Florence? Was it only coincidence that Giotto, the founder of Renaissance art, and Galileo, the founder of modern science, were native Tuscans? In fact the perspective geometry of Giotto and Brunelleschi had considerable influence on the visual thinking of Renaissance artisans-engineers, those practical technologists who carried out projects of all sorts for civic and princely patrons in times of war and peace, from designing fortifications and weaponry to the creation of monumental buildings and labor-saving machines. Filippi Brunelleschi was himself an artisan-engineer. His masterpiece, the soaring cupola above the cathedral in Florence, pays tribute both to his traditional engineering methods and to his further quantification of Giotto's three-dimensional visual perception.

2017

Current studies in history of science have shown evidences for the impossibility of drawing a clear distinction between optical studies and linear perspective in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Although linear perspective dealt then with the geometrical representation of space in a two dimensional surface, it was closely related to issues concerning the nature of human vision. One should take into consideration that, at that time, the term perspectiva was the Latin translation of Greek word optikè, meaning direct and distinct vision which revealed things according to the Greeks. This meaning of perspectiva coexisted with other ones which were used to designate the pictorial technique and, in order to distinguish both of them, it was common to establish an opposition between "common" or "natural" perspective to perspectiva artificialis of painters. These two different expressions were related in different ways, covering a broad spectrum of possibilities. However, as sixteenth century ended, these two expressions of knowledge turned gradually into different disciplines. Part of this process was related to new mathematical practices in which optics, geometry and the arts began to redefine their research fields, taking into account theoretical issues concerned visualization and representation of space. Regarding this, this paper presents some aspects of the close connection between perspectiva naturalis and artificialis, based on a set of documents concerning optical and linear perspective published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Nexus Network Journal, 2009

Paolo Freguglia examines the relationship between perspective and geometry before Guarini, and more precisely, in the 1500s. The representation of space, which in the pre-Classic age was substantially conceptual and sometimes ideographic, was gradually organised so that it became optical representation, and finally arrived at being able to give a sense of three-dimensions. The techniques of perspective were presented not only as practical rules for drawing in a given manner, in conformation with how observed reality appears to the eye, but were also described according to their geometric underpinnings. Thus were introduced new points of departure for considerations on geometry, as made evident by the work of Desargues and Pascal.

Art Bulletin, 2021

Nexus Network Journal, 2010

Nexus Network Journal, 2003

demonstrates an approach and method for constructing perspectival space that may account for many of the distinguishing spatial and compositional features of key Renaissance paintings. The aim of the paper is also to show that this approach would not necessarily require, as a prerequisite, any understanding of the geometric basis and definitions of linear perspective as established by Alberti. The author discusses paintings in which the spatial/geometric structure has often defied conventional reconstruction when the strict logic of linear perspective is applied.

Giambattista Nolli and Rome: Mapping the City before and after the Pianta Grande, 2014