Renaissance Rediscovery of Lin

by Samuel Y. Edgerton Jr.

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0064300692
• ISBN13: 9780064300698
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 206 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Pretty good history, not enough paintings

The use of linear perspective in art can be traced back to Brunelleschi's now lost panels depicting the Baptistery of Florence and the Palazzo Vecchio (1425). Brunelleschi observed the buildings in a mirror and attempted to capture this plane representation faithfully. Edgerton spends much time trying to reconstruct these "demonstrations". The basic ideas of linear perspective were soon afterwards applied by Masaccio in his Trinity fresco and by Masaccio and Masolino in the Brancacci Chapel frescoes, and became widespread after 1435 when Alberti wrote the first text on linear perspective, the Della pittura. Allberti says: "I decide how large I wish the human figures in the painting to be. I divide the height of this man into three parts ... With this measure I divide the bottom line ... into as many parts as it will hold." Then we fix the "centric point" (the observers straight-ahead point on the horizon ). "The suitable position for this centric point is no higher from the base line than the height of the man ... for in this way both the viewers and the objects in the painting will seem to be on the same plane. Having placed the centric point, I draw lines from it to each of the divisions on the base line." Through the centric point we draw the horizon. "This line is for me a limit or boundary, which no quantity exceeds that is not higher than the eye of the spectator ... This is why men depicted standing in the parallel [to the horizon] furthest away are a great deal smaller than those in the nearer ones, a phenomenon which is clearly demonstrated by nature herself, for in churches we see the heads of men walking about, moving at more or less the same height, while the feet of those further away may correspond to the knee-level of those in front." Next we learn the "costruzione legittima" construction of tiled floors, although the fact that construction lines typically need to be extended off-canvas seems to have caused some confusion. As examples of early uses of Alberti's text and somewhat unsuccessful costruzione legittimas we study two drawings by Bellini and Pisanello, where "the original perspective layout constructions can still be seen under the finishing ink". These artists "seem to have followed Alberti's instructions to the letter---to the best of their understanding". As for the reasons for the popularity of perspective, Edgerton emphasises religious motives: "perspective rules were accepted by ... early artists because it gave their depicted scenes a sense of harmony with natural law, thereby underscoring man's moral responsibility within God's geometrically ordered universe". "Linear perspective rules themselves had to be modified of even abandoned if they conflicted with the pictures true purpose in this sense", as we see in the case of a Veneziano altarpiece, which violates perspective laws and has the centric point at waist level. We next study how linear perspective was influenced by the science of optics. There is of cours