Andrea Mantegna: Camera degli Sposi Ceiling;, 1473, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua.

Our notion of Pictorial Perspective usually dates to 15th Century, when the methods that define Linear Perspective were codified.  It was an extraordinary discovery, originating in Florence, spreading almost instantly across Europe.  And it changed the course of Western Art.  Leonardo Da Vinci expressed how important it was to his work:

Practice must always be built from sound theoretical knowledge. The gateway to this theoretical knowledge is Perspective; without Perspective, nothing can be done well or properly in the matter of painting and drawing.

Art for Leonardo was not merely a matter of creating interesting paintings.  It was a fundamental tool through which the world's phenomena could be studied and communicated.  Correct perspective therefore was at the heart of the Renaissance understanding of the world.  If the perspective is changed, then our understanding of those phenomena must also be altered.

But Leonardo acknowledged only three different types of Perspective: Linear Perspective; the Perspective of Color; the Perspective of Disappearance.  There are in fact many more, some of them appearing to be more successful than others.  What all forms of Pictorial Perspective (including Leonardo's) have in commom is that they are are illusory, and in one way or another, imperfect.  All these conventions have merit, communicating space and volume in different ways to different audiences, and if some of them look odd to us, perhaps the fault is with observer.  So applying Leonardo's gateway to an examination of the various Perspectives ought to lead to some observations on cultural diversity and prevailing conventional wisdoms.  And it will illustrate that the transmission of real ideas is often achieved through the most artificial of constructs.

    

       Ground Plane
       Overlapping Figures
       Diminution
       Foreshortening
       Vitruvian Visual Rays
       Paraline Geometry
       Perspective of Status
       One Point Projection
       Two Point Projection
       Aerial Perspective
       Perspective of Colour
       Three Point Projection
       Four Point Projection
       Five Point Projection
       Six Point Projection
       Spherical Perspective
       Cylindrical Perspective
       Anamorphosis
       Orthographic Projection
       Multiple Viewpoints
       Magdalen Parallax
       Primitivism Revisited