Giovanni de Paolo: St John the Baptist Goes into the Wilderness, 1454
To modern eyes, scale and perspective look very strange in this
picture. St. John leaves the city for the country but does not
diminish in size, though we know that in our experience objects appear smaller as they
get further from us as viewers. The tiny buildings in the landscape
may be an attempt (unconvincing) to create this effect.
We can see this as incompetence, but it may also be a matter of
priorities: It was more important to the artist to show St. John at a
certain size than to be true-to-life. Fidelity to visual experience
was not a priority for him.
Masaccio, The Tribute Money, 1427
Here the figure on the left is further back in space and diminishes in scale accordingly. The perspective is correct, unlike in the previous painting. This became a central concern in Italian Renaissance art.
An illustration of the system of one-point perspective: all parallel
lines going back into space (away from the picture plane) converge at
a single vanishing point on the horizon/eye level line.
Piero Francesca, The Flagellation of Christ, 1450's:
One-point perspective put into practice
Giovanni di Paolo
An attempt at perspective without a clear system or understanding of the rules. The space becomes confusing, which is interesting in its own way.
Piero della Francesca, The Resurrection:
The foot of Christ is an excellent example of FORESHORTENING: It's not an idea of a foot, it's how the foot would really look in that situation.
Albert Bierstadt, American, 1800's:
ATMOSPHERIC PERSPECTIVE: Color becomes muted and contrast and detail
reduced as the landscape recedes into space.
Chinese Painting:
A different notion of perspective: unlike in the Bierstadt, we aren't looking up at the mountains from one point in space. We seem to be floating through the landscape, viewing all its features frontally or from slightly above.
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles D'Avignon, 1907:
The twentieth century saw a flattening of form and space. In this image there's no clear perspective system. There is no sense of eye-level or much recession into depth.
Jackson Pollock, American, mid-20th century:
Another example of the "all-over" space of twentieth century
painting. We're back to a space that corresponds to the imagination
of the artist rather than truth to objective visual experience. There's no clear perspective system, or sense of eye-level.
