It's all a matter of Perspective

Our first topic of focus this year is Perspective.  Our member Jeanette took the time to explain various aspects of perspective and provided several visual examples.  Here is some of what was presented.

History

The rules of perspective as we know them today developed during the Renaissance in Florence, Italy in the early 1400s.  Prior to this time paintings were not expected to be realistic of naturalistic representations of life.  Instead paintings were stylized and symbolic.  For instance, the size of a figure in a painting might indicate their importance, rather than their proximity to the viewer, and individual colors carried significance and meaning beyond their actual hue.

What is perspective?

The definition of perspective can be given as "the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point." Rather wordy, but put more simply, perspective drawing gives a three-dimensional feeling to a picture.  It's a system of representing the way objects appear to get smaller and closer together the further away they are in a scene.  It is one of the fundamentals in art you need to understand in order to create realistic and believable scenes.

Vanishing Point

A key element in many works of art is what is known as a vanishing point, or point of convergence.  Here are a couple of visual examples.

A vanishing point can be seen at the far end of this railroad (Source, Wikipedia)

The road lines vanish off into the distant horizon.

The vanishing point is the spot on the horizon line to which the receding parallel lines diminish.  It is what allows us to create drawings, paintings, and photographs that have a three-dimensional look.  

The easiest way to illustrate this in real life is to stand in the middle of a straight road. When you do this, you'll notice how the sides of the road and the lines painted on it meet in one spot on the horizon. The center line will go straight for it and the lines on the side will angle in until all of them intersect. That point of intersection is the vanishing point.  

The vanishing point may be inside or outside the actual landscape scene.

Jeanette's presentation went on to describe the various types of linear perspective; one-point, two-point and three-point.  The one/two/three refers to the number of vanishing points used to create the perspective illusion. Two-point perspective is the most commonly used.

Aerial or Atmospheric Perspective

Aerial or atmospheric perspective is another type of perspective that causes things in the distance to appear to have a lighter value and a cooler hue than things in the foreground.  Atmospheric perspective is not linear perspective.  Rather, it attempts to use control of focus, shading, contrast, and detail to duplicate the visual effect of near objects being crisp and clear.  At the same time, distant objects may be less distinct and muted.  ArtHints.com gives a good explanation and some visual examples of atmospheric perspective here.

Another example of aerial or atmospheric perspective is a mountain range in which the mountains in the distance appear lighter in value and a bit cooler, or bluer, in hue.  Because of the increased layers of atmosphere between the viewer and objects in the distance, objects that are further away also appear to have softer edges and fewer details.

Foreshortening Perspective

Foreshortening is yet another type of perspective that makes something appear as though it is receding strongly into the distance by compressing or shortening the length of the object.  There are several good videos online to show the technique.  Here is a link to a video about creating this technique.  This link here also has a good illustration of the impacts of foreshortening.  One of the better examples and explanations of foreshortening can be found here at this site for the Khan Academy.

Additional Research

http://everyonecandraw.net/Perspective/

https://www.studentartguide.com/articles/one-point-perspective-drawing

The group was then challenged to take photos of examples of the various types of perspective and attempt to use textiles and fibre to portray what we had learned.