The Aesthetics of Perspective

Perspective is the art of drawing on a plane, the appearances of any figures, by the rules of geometry. The science of linear perspective was first described by Leon Battista Alberti in the fifteenth century as a means of explaining and organizing visual perceptions. Artists took another approach to perspective, placing less emphasis on geometric problem-solving and more on the creation of spatial illusion and compositional organization. The treatises devoted to making perspective intelligible to the artist disseminated a more intellectual approach, stressing the importance of the planar method of depicting space. The meaning of the term “perspective” was explained through a comparison of the picture plane to a pane of glass placed between the sitter and the subject. Perspective became both a means of creating spatial illusion and an element of design on the pictorial surface. During the course of the nineteenth century, there emerged an unprecedented number of conflicting attitudes about perspective.