The Art of Perspective Drawing is the realistic illusion of three-dimensional space

The illusion of the three-dimensional space, is the illusion of depth. The most obvious way to create an illusion of depth is overlapping. One thing overlapping another thing = depth.

But not entirely.

Just ahead of the Italian Renaissance, artists like Giotto began to Demonstrate an interest in the realistic depiction of space.

Still, making space that felt real was a big challenge, one that took centuries to solve.

It was the Florentine engineer and architect, Brunelleschi, who in approximately1400 AD, discovered an answer to the problem. His discovery sparked a revolution in art. The Earliest example of a painting influenced by Brunelleschi’s ideas was made 25 years later by anotherItalian artist named Masaccio.

Looking at this building one day, Brunelleschi had an epiphany. He noticed that if he looked straight at the front of this building, all the diagonal lines on the sides, the receding lines of the building seemed to be heading toward the same direction.

Linear perspective is what we now call Brunelleschi’s discovery. Linear Perspective is a mathematical system for representing three dimensional space. The key to making it work, as Brunelleschi discovered, is to draw all receding

sets of parallel lines such that they appear to converge at a point (or points) on the horizon line.

The blues lines trace the receding sets of parallel lines that make up the ribsRunning the long way down the vault. Notice that these lines converge (come Together) slightly below the horizon line.

By 1509, (and probably much earlier) they have figured it out.

The study of linear perspective begins with the cube--simple geometric volume with sides that recede in space.

Except when you draw them, they will look more like this.

Or this. The real genius of Brunelleschi’s epiphany was that it worked the same backwards as forwards. If the receding diagonal lines of a building go back to one point, you could start with points and draw diagonal lines to construct realistic cubic volumes in space.

Volumes that could become this.

Or This.

Linear Perspective

• Linear Perspective is a mathematical system for making realistic three-dimensional space and objects

• Linear Perspective works on the principle that all receding diagonal lines that define a plane will appear to converge to a point on the horizon

• The basic unit of Linear Perspective is the cube.