elements of perspective

This page and the pages linked to it comprise the most extensive
treatment of linear perspective available online, and one of the
most comprehensive tutorials available in any textbook currently
in print. New edition, revised and expanded 07/2014.

The technique of linear perspective allows artists to simulate

or construct the appearance of three dimensional space on a two
dimensional surface. It is one of the major innovations of
European art, with an extraordinary impact on western visual
culture from the 15th to the 19th centuries.

Linear perspective is the artist's slide rule, an antique technology

that has been replaced by film or digital photography, opaque
projectors, and computer assisted design and animation
software. It lives on primarily in art historical monographs,
architectural visualizations and the freewheeling digital mayhem
of Grand Theft Auto.

So why bother with it? Because knowledge of perspective greatly

enhances your perception and understanding of light and space,
and attunes you to spatial recession as the power line of visual
design. It is a reliable guide to drawing in all situations, and a
fascinating case study of the ways that a painting is shaped by
purely conceptual considerations. It is also indispensable to
understand the design problems that inspired and challenged
artists of the past.

Although the Greeks and Romans drew foreshortened limbs and

architectural forms, the geometrical tools necessary to construct
a consistent illusion of spatial depth across the entire picture
plane were first developed and used by 15th century Florentine
artists with strong mathematical skills: the visionary architect
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and the humanist scholar
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472). They systematized the
Tuscan workshop methods of pseudoperspective or near
perspective which were already on display in frescos by Giotto
and Duccio. It's interesting that technically advanced northern
Italians were working out the geometry of linear perspective at
about the same time that optically sophisticated artists in the
Low Countries were adopting projection devices to create
more realistic pictures. Perspective was just one aspect of a new
artistic realism that was created by many practitioners in
separate regions of Europe.

In 1435 Alberti wrote the Latin manuscript De Pictura (On

Painting), which he revised and translated into Italian as Della
Pittura in 1436. This was the first book to describe perspective
methods as part of the overall design of a painting, and within a
century artists such as Piero della Francesca (c.1470) and
Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1490) in Italy, Albrecht Dürer (1525) in
Germany and the architect Jean Pélerin (1505) in France wrote
more ambitious perspective studies. During the 16th and 17th
centuries linear perspective diffused across Europe and was
honed through the analysis of specific representational problems,
in particular foreshortened human figures, the visualization of
intricate geometrical solids (often realized as engravings or as
inlaid wood designs called intarsa), architectural scenery for
plays and operas, frescos representing great spatial depth, and
anamorphic projections (which appear "normal" from an oblique
angle of view, or when viewed in a curved mirror). In the 17th
century these refined LP methods were absorbed into and
thoroughly grounded by the science of projective geometry, and
analytical geometricians began to investigate perspective issues
unrelated to any artistic practice.

No matter: artists continued using perspective in a variety of

innovative ways, developing practical shortcuts for constructing
perspective drawings, and refining the perspective rendering of
architectural forms in combination with the free perspective
representation of figures and objects. By the 18th century
perspective was ensconced as a core study in art academies,
which transformed perspective techniques into a mechanical
orthodoxy that contributed to the extinction of strict perspective
styles of painting. Early 19th century artists such as J.M.W.
Turner made interesting explorations in optical color mixing and
aerial perspective, preparing a complete break from perspective
traditions late in the 19th century.

In the traditional account, Brunelleschi either discovered or

verified linear perspective by literally painting views of
buildings onto a mirror or windowpane. This "draw on glass"
approach was probably not the method Brunelleschi actually
used, but it fits well with the idea that a perspective painting is
a mirror or window view of the world, and it soon became
the standard way to convince drawing students that perspective
really works, even when the scope of the problem is no bigger
than a table top.

one more convert to perspective

from Charles Hayter, Introduction to Perspective (1813)

Want to try it? Punch a small hole in an index card, staple or

tape the card to one end of a wood yardstick, then tape the
other end of the yardstick to the back of a chair, so that the hole
in the card is at your eye level as you straddle the chair. Put the
chair in front of a large window, sit, and look through the hole in
the card with one eye. Use an erasable marker pen or grease
pencil to draw on the glass the buildings or objects in view, then
hold a white paper behind the glass to see your finished design.
As you draw, you may notice that this procedure feels confining.
That's because it is — illustrating how far the assumptions of
perspective differ from our fluid, constantly changing visual
experience.
 a renaissance perspective machine
from Albrecht Dürer, Underweysung der Messung mit Zirckel und
Richtscheyt ... [Instruction How to Measure with Compass and
Straight Edge ...] (1525)

This peephole or "peep show" tracing method does not make

clear that linear perspective is really created by straight lines
passing through a vertical plane. For that, the perspective
"machine" (diagram, above) by the German artist Albrecht
Dürer (1471-1528) is a better example. By looping a weighted
string through an eye ring in the wall, one artist could hold the
opposite end along the contours of a lute; a second artist could
measure the height and horizontal position of the string where it
passed through a rectangular frame, then transfer this point to a
paper or canvas (shown as a hinged panel). By repeating the
measurements dozens or hundreds of times, a "connect the
dots" perspective view of the three dimensional lute could be
constructed on a two dimensional surface. Through similar
empirical methods, Renaissance artists worked out the
geometric fundamentals of perspective technique.

Dürer's machine demonstrates that linear perspective explicitly

depends on a single point of view in space. A perspective
drawing of a building or landscape reveals the location, vantage
and orientation of the viewer as precisely as it shows the
physical form of the objects in view. The eye ring (diagram,
above) represents the eye of the viewer or center of
projection; the stretched string represents the straight beams
of light or visual rays that converge on the eye from all objects
in the field of view; the hinged surface is the artist's canvas or
image plane. Everything comes down to that point of view
defined by the wall ring or hole in index card: the point of
view, not objects in space, is the fundamental perspective
theme.

Linear perspective is fundamentally a geometrical method, not

a mathematical one — which means you draw, you don't
calculate. All you need are the standard construction tools from
high school geometry: a straight edge (ruler), pencil and a
compass (or a long strip of cardboard and some push pins).
Unfortunately, these tools are awkward to use when the
perspective view is extreme or the drawing is very large, and
they make quantitative discussion of perspective issues difficult.
So I explain numerical calculations, reduced drawings and other
tricks that can help you through those problems. But
calculations are not necessary to apply LP methods.

There is a sprawling and stale literature on linear perspective,

but two points deserve mention. As James Elkins and Martin
Kemp point out, the historical uses of perspective construction
have always been opportunistic and evolving. Many seemingly
"obedient" perspective paintings reveal, on closer examination,
"fuzzy" or multiple vanishing points — some objects in the image
are "in perspective" and other objects are not. Most artists chose
to make "corrections" to apparently inconsistent perspective
distortions, often in pursuit of a more pleasing finished
composition: linear perspective often creates as many design
problems as design solutions. In that limited sense, LP is not any
better or worse for making "realistic" images than the various
types of parallel or paraline perspectives used by architects
and engineers — elevation, section and plan, or military,
isometric and dimetric projections. In all these, similar
distortions appear and are easily ignored. The moral is that
perspective must be used gently: it is a very cool drawing
tool and a compelling representational convention, not the
ultimate code of drawing correctness.

The best approach is to rely on LP to lay out basic proportions

and shapes, to clarify difficult drawing problems, and to guide
your intuitions about forms and textures in space. Freehand
perspective and trust in your visual judgment should not be
pushed aside, but nourished and exercised by the insights linear
perspective can provide. As Vasari wrote of Michelangelo, "he
held his compasses, that is to say his judgment, in his eyes and
not his hands."

I've divided these diverse materials into separate pages, and

occasionally use nonstandard terminology in the interest of
clarity. I hope to provide a practical and provocative reference to
the topic.

References. There are many books on linear perspective, and they are
wildly uneven in quality and practicality. For beginners, Perspective Made
Easy by Ernest Norling (Norton, 1967), first published in 1939, provides a
very lucid, entertaining and highly practical general introduction. John
Raynes's A Complete Guide to Perspective (Collins & Brown, 2005)
introduces perspective problems through an attractive selection of
photographs and diagrams, but is rather informal about construction
solutions, especially for shadows and reflections. The discussion in
Perspective for Artists by Rex Vicat Cole (Norton, 1976) is a more
extensive and practical presentation, though somewhat out of date. The
most comprehensive practical instructions, tailored to the tools and
methods of architects and draftsmen, can be found in Perspective
Drawing: A Step-by-Step Handbook by Michael E. Helms (Prentice Hall,
1997), available as a facsimile reprint. Another useful though occasionally
inaccurate guide is Perspective: From Basic to Creative by Robert W.
Gill (Thames & Hudson, 2006). The elegant "circle of view" approach
adopted here is based on Linear Perspective: Its History, Directions
for Construction, and Aspects in the Environment and in the Fine
Arts by Willy Bärtschi (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981), regrettably now out
of print but probably too formal for most artists.

The following sources expand on the historical and artistic context for
perspective techniques. The Science of Art by Martin Kemp (Yale
University Press, 1990) is a careful study of the historical development and
use of linear perspective. The Poetics of Perspective by James Elkins
(Cornell University Press, 1994) is a stimulating if academic study of the
development and artistic impact of perspective techniques from the early
Renaissance to early Baroque. E.H. Gombrich's classic Art and Illusion
(Princeton University Press, 1960) is the most articulate defense of linear
perspective as an accurate description of the visual world. On that theme,
Optics, Painting and Photography by M.H. Pirenne (Cambridge
University Press, 1970) experimentally (and with clear photographic
examples) explores and confirms the accuracy and limitations of
perspective as a description of natural human vision. The most famous
dissenting view is Erwin Panofsky's Perspective as Symbolic Form
(1924; Zone Books, 1997), treacherous for the uninformed but an
amusement for adepts. There are also many web pages devoted to
perspective, most of them useless; start with the online translation of
Alberti's Della Pittura, which is available in paperback from Penguin
Books. There are many books describing perspective for use in CAD
programs, which are less useful for a painter.

PAGE INDEX
Page 1. Perspective in the World

The Texture of Space. Perspective originates in the common

appearance of the real world, where texture is as important as
geometrical buildings in our experience of distance.

Four Perspective Facts. Everything in perspective arises from

four perspective facts — the straight line path of light, a fixed
viewpoint, the visual cone centered on the direction of view, and
the image cross section through the visual cone.

Creating the Perspective View. The four perspective facts

provide the basis for a framework to represent the three
dimensional world on a two dimensional surface.
The Perspective Setup. We discover the structure of the
perspective view by "looking at" a metric grid; this perspective
structure becomes the 90° circle of view framework that
allows us to solve any perspective problem.

Basic Rules of Perspective. Nearly all perspective

constructions can be explained in terms of 15 perspective rules
(and a perspective glossary).

Image Plane, Viewpoint & Direction of View. The

orientation of the image plane to the viewer's head is governed
by the display convention, viewing convention and projection
assumption; changing the direction of view changes the
perspective in the image; the height of the viewpoint is always
shown by the virtual horizon line.

Perspective Distortions. Viewing a perspective image from

any location other than the center of projection creates
distortions in the image objects: these are "cured" by reducing
the circle of view, or can be manipulated for expressive effect.

Page 2. Central Perspective

The Visual Ray Method. Artists and mathematicians of the

18th century discovered the "double fold" that allows
perspective problems to be analyzed in terms of visual rays from
the viewpoint to the plan view of an object.

One Point Perspective. In 1PP or central perspective, parallel

lines define horizontal and vertical dimensions and a single
vanishing point (the principal point) defines recession in depth.

Orthogonals & Central Recession. Orthogonals define the

viewer's central recession, which is unaffected by the orientation
of objects in view; they project a unit dimension in depth and,
with the diagonal vanishing points, can define perspective
distance from the viewer.

Slanting & Sloping Planes. Simply by rotating the circle of

view or raising the horizon line, central perpective can represent
slanting or sloping surfaces.

Perspective Gradients. Perspective controls the appearance of

textures or patterns on all natural and artificial surface: object
distance and ground height on the viewing plane are inversely
proportional.
Distance & Size. Triangular proportions are the geometric core
of perspective; using them we can define the exact size of
objects we want to draw, provided we know the viewing distance
to painting and the distance or actual size of the objects.

Scaling the Drawing. Discussion of central recession and

format dimensions, with step by step instructions for scaling the
circle of view, object distance, image size and image location
using the anchor point and measure bar.

Display Geometry & Image Impact. The geometrical

relationships in a perspective image strongly affect its visual
impact and esthetic qualities.

Anamorphic Images. Images can be distorted, using

projection methods similar to linear perspective, so that they
appear flat or veridical when viewed obliquely or in a curved
mirror.

Constructing a 1PP Cube. The step by step method for

constructing a three dimensional rectangular solid using 1PP or
central perspective projection methods, with emphasis on the
artistic decisions that are part of the process.

Early Renaissance Methods. The earliest uses of central

perspective were based on practical drawing methods, not
abstract geometry.

Page 3. Two Point Perspective (2PP)

Two Point Perspective. The basic geometry of 2PP

projections, in which there are two vanishing points for the sides
of a rectangular solid seen at an angle.

Rotating the Vanishing Points. The correct method for

locating 2PP vanishing points in relation to the 90° circle of view.

Locating the Measure Points. The isoceles triangle that

defines the geometry of measure points; locating measure
points from established vanishing points.

Constructing a 2PP Cube. The step by step method for

constructing a three dimensional rectangular solid using 2PP
projection methods.
Inclined Lines & Inclined Planes. Methods for finding the
vanishing point of an inclined line and the vanishing line of an
inclined plane.

Distance Point Projection. A tradition method for constructing

2PP drawings relies on the diagonal vanishing points to project a
square and its diagonal into perspective space.

The Ground Line Framework. The alternative perspective

setup commonly used by draftsmen and architects.

Who Has a 12 Foot Table? It's not uncommon for the

vanishing points in 2PP to be 12 feet or more apart. There are
three different remedies for this problem.

VP Spacing from an Object Drawing. There are inflexible

geometrical relationships between the size of the object, its
distance from the viewer, and the spacing of the vanishing points
in 2PP drawing. These limit your freedom to guess at vanishing
point relationships.

Where Is the Center of Projection? The circle of view

approach allows you to find the center of projection implied by
any 2PP image that contains defining diagonal elements.

Page 4. Three Point Perspective (3PP)

Three Point Perspective. The basic geometry of 3PP

projections, in which there are three vanishing points for all
sides of a rectangular solid that is both rotated and tilted to the
image plane.

The Perspective Sketch Construction Method. The step by

step method for constructing a 3PP projection of a cube by
starting with a sketch of the desired perspective proportions.

Constructing a 3PP Cube (Sketch Method). The step by step

method for constructing a three dimensional cube using 3PP
projection methods, with two methods to define the measure
points.

The Horizon Line Construction Method. The geometrical

logic for rotating the 3PP vanishing points, which permits them
to be located and the drawing scaled exactly.
Constructing a 3PP Drawing (Horizon Line Method). Step
by step explanation of how a 3PP drawing is made, from rotating
the vanishing points to scaling the image size.

Page 5. Advanced Perspective Techniques

Perspective of Complex Plane Figures. Projecting complex

two dimensional figures into perspective space, including an
ellipse, a pentagon, a city map, and three ways to project a
circle.

Perspective of Complex Solid Forms. Complex solid forms

can be projected into perspective space by using various
strategies; examples include Uccello's chalice, a sphere, the
Leaning Tower of Pisa, two types of cones, a rectangular solid, a
series of arches, a staircase, an octahedron, a dodecahedron,
and the human figure.

Buildings From Blueprints or Plans. Buildings and large

objects can be projected into perspective space by deriving
measure bars and vanishing points from plans, elevations and
profile drawings.

Paraline Perspectives. Perspective systems based on

nonconverging (parallel) lines, which can represent all three
dimensions and all internal right angles at equal scale and
without recession.

Curvilinear Perspectives. Recent perspective systems based

on curved vanishing lines, designed to represent the subjective
curvatures of natural vision.

Page 6. Shadows, Reflections & Atmosphere

Basic Rules of Perspective Shadows. The basic geometry

and terminology for perspective shadow constructions.

Shadows from Solar Light. Different construction problems

arise depending on whether the shadow creating edge and the
shadow receiving surface are vertical, horizontal or inclined.

Shadows from Local Lights. Nearby light sources complicate

shadow perspective because they are not point sources and
produce enlarged or diffuse shadow shapes.
Perspective of Reflections. Reflections from mirrors or still
water surfaces present simple construction problems; ripples in
water produce more complex periodic patterns; convex or
spherical surfaces create optical distortions.

Aerial Perspective. Landscape distance is suggested by the

many subtle changes in detail, color and tone that occur when
air filters light across large distances, or smoke or fog filters
light across a romantic rendezvous.

Rainbows. Rainbows combine color, atmosphere, landscape and

light in panoramic proportions of beauty that vary with weather,
time of day, geographic location and season. They signal the end
of our perspective studies.

Last revised 07.I.2015 • © 2015 Bruce MacEvoy