The Influence of Perspective on Western Art

The discovery of the principle of perspective, the earliest is in the ancient Greek period, the fifth century B.C. there is a record of perspective painting, that is, the previously mentioned in the transparent plane with a line in order to depict the scene. And perspective really as a discipline, from the fifteenth century Italian Renaissance (equivalent to our country about the Yuan Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty) began, when painting, sculpture, stage theater and other arts in the humanist ideas and scientific methods under the double influence of the vigorous development of the theory of painting is also gradually formed. Following nature was the program of action of the Renaissance art masters. In order to be able to represent objective things truthfully, accurately and vividly, they were not satisfied with relying on their senses to recognize the world, and demanded to understand the world with reason. So they armed themselves with experimental methods and mathematics to observe nature and people. The combination of art and science was a prominent feature of this period. Artists enthusiastically studied perspective and also dissected corpses themselves to observe the structure of human muscles and bones. Perspective and anatomy became the two pillars of the art of the era.

Numerous painters, architects and sculptors paid attention to and studied perspective, and created some scientific perspective painting methods, such as Brunelleschi, an outstanding architect, sculptor and craftsman in the early Renaissance in Italy, summarized the experience of his predecessors on the basis of the further study of the principle of perspective, and taught it to the painter Masaccio, and applied it to his paintings. 1435, the famous architect and painter Alberdi, in his book <

At the beginning of this period, he wrote a book entitled <

. Alberty, in 1435, the famous architect and painter, specialized in perspective in his Treatise on Painting. During this period, many other painters, such as Uccello and Mantegna, made outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of perspective. The most significant contribution was made by the painter Francesca, who, in 1485, developed perspective to a point of considerable perfection with his "Perspective in Painting". The theories of Alberti and Francesca symbolize the most outstanding achievement of painting in this period - the mastery of the laws of spatial expression. The Renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci, also paid great attention to the study of perspective, and divided perspective into three branches: line perspective, air perspective, and hidden perspective, and especially made an in-depth study of light and shadow. Due to the influence of Italian painting and the spread of perspective, there were many national painters in Europe at that time, such as Dürer and other German painters in the same period, as well as the later Frenchman Dysagus, the Dutchman Marlow Kuranjas, Graveschamps, the British mathematician Taylor, Curzon, the painters of Kilby, Maldon, the Swiss Lambert also made in-depth study of perspective and its practical use. Until the 19th century, the French mathematician Montreux became the founder of projective geometry, the development of perspective has made a greater contribution to the development of perspective, and now a variety of general perspective drawing method is all established. That is to say, with the deepening of research, architects, artists, mathematicians continue to make new discoveries, people no longer stay in the simple and heavy imitation method. Through the efforts of many generations, we have gradually summarized the various perspective theories and methods that we use today, thus helping mankind to realize the aesthetic pursuit of creating the real illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane.

Before the Renaissance, most paintings were flat or in shallow relief. Leaving aside the perspective and concepts that we come to savor and judge today, they were failures in terms of visual authenticity: dull images, rigid characters, and a lack of three-dimensionality and spatiality. Therefore, the emergence of perspective in the Renaissance era, in addition to responding to the people's pursuit of real, scientific literary and artistic trends, but also to the painter and the audience to bring the heartfelt joy and amazement, da Vinci once said: "realistic painting based on perspective, perspective is the reins and rudder wheel of painting." And proposed that "young people should first of all, the painting is the first thing to be done. And proposed that "young people should first learn the method of distance and proximity". From this, we can see that the visual realism of realistic painting is based on perspective composition, which can make the two-dimensional space of the picture to show people an unprecedented charm - the charm of rationality, the charm of authenticity. As the cornerstone of realistic painting in composition, Western perspective was established from the fifteenth century until Impressionism has never been shaken.