Perspective in Art

Why study Perspective in Art?

• Increase knowledge of parallel lines• Introduce the concept of convergence• Gain a historical perspective of the

connection between Renaissance Artists and Mathematicians

• Learn about the interconnectedness between math and other disciplines

Who was interested in using mathematics?

• Brunelleschi• Michelangleo• Davinci• Alberti• Donatello• And many more…

Let’s take a look at some paintings that were completed before artists

studied perspective.

Now let us look at art that was created after the 14th century and after artists began to use geometry in their work.

Look at this drawing of a stage set. It is drawn to illustrate the placement of furniture on the

stage without regards to perspective.

You may have noticed that it looks as if the furniture could fall right off of the

stage. Now we will look at the same stage drawn in

perspective

What did artists learn that helped them bring perspective to their

paintings?

All lines that are parallel in nature will converge to a point on the canvas.

Converge- 1 : to tend or move toward one point or one another : come together

2 : to come together and unite in a common interest or focus

A good painting of a landscape should look like its image in a

window pane.

What the artist sees…A view from the top

How do artists see lines?

The Vanishing Point

The Center of the Hallway

Viewer on the left side of the hallway

Imagine this…

Try some experiments:

• Try to draw the hallway free hand. • Using a plastic pane, mark all of the critical points

in the hallway as viewed from the center of the hallway

• Same as above, only stand to the left of the hallway

• Same as above, but stand in the center of the hallway and slant your pane to the right. (Stay perpendicular to the pane)

How do your panes compare to the theories discussed earlier?