Учебно-методическое пособие для студентов специальности «Дизайн»
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Text 7 The term ‘perspective’ used in two main senses with respect to art: gener- ally, for any systematic technique that renders the illusion of recession behind a two-dimensional surface (including receding lines, gradients of colour, tone and texture, degrees of clarity etc); but also more specifically, for the geomet- rical technique of linear perspective, the modern form of which was invented in the early Renaissance. The word perspective derives from the Latin perspectiva, which in the Middle Ages came to denote the whole science of optics, including the study of the eye, reflections and refractions. With the invention of linear perspective in the early 15 th century, the scientific term was annexed by writers on art. Ex- isting literature on the subject has paid enormous attention to linear perspec- tive, and full-scale historical reviews are available, while other forms of per- spective have been relatively neglected. This article gives more attention to the neglected topics, particularly the forms of depth illusion that use gradients of colour, acuity and chiaroscuro, methods collectively referred to as non- linear perspective. Although linear and non-linear perspective have often been used together in works of art, they are examined here separately in a historical context. The various perspectival techniques have proved continuously effective and robust in providing the artist with a means of constructing an illusion of space on a two-dimensional surface, but the precise status of perspective as an optically and perceptually accurate way of representing the world has been subject to sustained controversy. On the one hand, it is claimed that perspec- tive (especially linear perspective) corresponds in a direct and non-arbitrary manner to the way in which visual stimuli are received and understood (Ernst Gombrich), while on the other it is argued that it is purely a convention char- acterizing a certain phase of Western representation, which has no claim to superior representational value (Erwin Panofsky). It has also been claimed that linear perspective instituted a new way of seeing and that it was a major causative factor in the scientific revolution (Edgerton). 125 Linear devices have featured in any phase of painting, drawing or relief sculpture in which a sustained attempt was made to evoke the appearance of forms in illusory space. Even the art forms of eras when the naturalistic repre- sentation of objects in space was not a primary goal (e. g. Byzantine painting) resorted to some form of rudimentary linear perspective to suggest the pres- ence of, for example, a chair or building. Non-scientific systems do not neces- sarily exploit the effect that parallel lines appear to converge towards a focus as they move away from us; rather they show lines as more or less retaining their parallel relationship or even as diverging in the distance (as ‘inverted perspective’). Just such a form of inverted perspective entered Italian 13 th - century art via Byzantine painting. In the later phases of medieval painting and in Netherlandish painting in the first half of the 15 th century various systems were adopted that rely on the apparent convergence of parallel lines to broad zones of focus or towards axes. The practice of Giotto established that lines below the viewer’s sight appear to slant upwards and those above to slant downwards, while those at a central (horizontal) level remain horizontal. He may have been responsible for establishing a technique by which selected sets of parallel lines (e.g. in the coffers of a ceiling) converge to a single point. By the time of Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti in the 1340s, this rule of conver- gence and the intervals for horizontal lines had been clearly established for in- dividual motifs within paintings but not for the overall space. The invention of linear perspective in the ‘scientific’ sense is credited to the Florentine sculptor and architect Filippo Brunelleschi probably before 1413. Unfortunately, Brunelleschi’s demonstration panels of the Baptistery and Palazzo Vecchio in Florence are known only through written descriptions by his biographer, and we have no precise account of his methods. The earliest text to codify linear perspective was Leon Battista Alberti’s treatise “Depic- tura” (1435–1436). Alberti attempted to demonstrate the optical foundation of perspective in the visual pyramid, the vertex of which is in the eye. He de- scribes a step-by-step procedure for the portrayal of parallel lines passing to the ‘centric point’ (later called the vanishing point) and how to determine the correct intervals for horizontal lines at progressively deeper positions in space. On the basis of the resulting construction (a kind of tiled floor), any given form can be drawn in space in due proportion. The basic technique was rapidly adopted by leading artists from the 1430s onwards and used with particular effect for the construction of space in narra- tive paintings and in a new form of unified altarpiece. Particularly subtle use was made of perspective by Domenico Veneziano in his “St Lucy” altarpiece (1445), while Paolo Uccello worked a series of obsessionally complex and ec- centric variations on the basic method. The sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, in 126 the third of his “Commentaries”, compiled an anthology of medieval optical texts as a way of annexing optics for the theory of art but was unable to dem- onstrate that linear perspective was a logical outcome of earlier science. The greatest perspecrivist of the mid-15 th century was Piero della Francesca, whose book “De prospectiva pingendi” outlined two basic methods: one relying on the transfer of forms to a plane foreshortened in the manner of Alberti; the other using a step-by-step projection of key points from the plan and elevation of an object on to a plane. Practical problems with linear perspective, especially when dealing with wide visual angles, had been apparent at an early date, but it was Leonardo da Vinci who first tackled the full range of geometrical and optical difficulties. He undertook systematic investigations of optical changes occurring when the relative positions of object, picture plane and viewer are altered; contrived various devices for the automatic drawing of forms in perspective; looked at the functioning of the eye and the consequences of optical science for the the- ory and practice of painters’ perspective; and experimented with unusual sys- tems. The result of his varied inquiries was that he moved away from a straightforward faith in the kind of pictorial system outlined by Alberti and became more aware of the deceptions and complications of the visual process. He never abandoned linear perspective entirely as an effective method but did attempt to minimize its shortcomings while increasingly relying on other forms of perspective. From the 16 th century European artists were increasingly expected to have a command of basic perspective, and a series of treatises was published to meet the demand for instruction. In the 17 th and 18 th centuries competence in basic perspective was taken for granted by artists and patrons, and it continued to be of special importance in some branches of art, such as Dutch topographi- cal painting (especially church interiors, such as those by Pieter Saenredam), and in illusionistic decoration of the kind that some Bolognese artists came to regard as their specialization. The most important theorists of linear perspec- tive during the 18 th century were Brook Taylor, an English disciple of Isaac Newton, and the German mathematician Johann Heinrich Lambert. Generally speaking, overt and virtuoso use of perspective became increas- ingly less important during the later 18th century and the 19 th , although the numbers of instructional books certainly did not diminish. During the earlier 19th century the large-scale, walk-in “Panorama” became a popular form of public entertainment, following the lead of Robert Barker. One area in which perspective flourished was technical drawing, whether in the service of archi- tecture or engineering, and various specialized systems were developed. 127 Avant-garde artists of the 20 th century mostly rejected orthodox perspec- tive theory, and instruction in schools and academies became increasingly re- served for architects and other draughtsmen in technical fields. жүктеу/скачать 0,79 Mb. Достарыңызбен бөлісу:
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