Perspective Drawing


While some elements of perspective were developed by the Ancient Greeks, Filippo Brunelleschi is largely credited with developing modern perspective drawing in the early 1400's. Before Brunelleschi, paintings and drawings sized objects in an unnatural fashion, often according to their spirtual or thematic importance. Brunelleschi's geometrical method is based on the observation that parallel lines converge to vanishing points on the horizon.

There are different types of perspective drawing based on the use of one or more vanishing points. The most commonly-used methods are one- and two-point perspective, but there are other types as well.

In one-point perspective drawing, there is a single vanishing point. This sort of perspective works well for objects like a straight road, train tracks, or corridors.



In two-point perspective drawing, there are two vanishing points. This sort of perspective works well for scenes with multiple objects that have perpendicular straight lines, like a collection of buildings in a city.

More exotic perspective systems have been employed as well. M.C. Escher made clever use of curved and spiraling perspective grids to produce some of his most famous prints, including "Up and Down" and "Print Gallery".

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