Perspective
Perspective is a complicated topic that deserves a great deal of attention in order for it to be completely understood. There are a number of wonderful books and websties available for further information (please see my bibliography). The term perspective, in the context of art, specifically drawing and painting, refers to "the technique an artist uses to create the illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface. Simply put, perspective is a means of fooling the viewer's eye. There only appears to be depth or receding space in the work." (http://arthistory.about.com/cs/glossaries/g/p_perspective.htm) In other words, perspective has to do with the way an artist arranges shapes, sizes and colors in a work of art, in order for things that would look closer in three-dimensional real life look realistic in the two-dimensional picture plane. In fact, the entire theory of perspective can be connected to one single fact: "the apparent size of an object decreases with increasing distance from the eye." (www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit11/unit11.html)
There are six basic techniques (position, size, overlap, detail, atmospheric perspective (color) and linear perspective) used by artists to accomplish this. Position refers to the placement of an object in the picture plane. The higher on the plane an object is, the further away it looks; accordingly, the opposite also holds true- the lower on the plane and object is, the closer it looks. Size relates to the fact that things further away look smaller and things that are closer look larger. Overlap is by far the easiest to understand and use: the object in front of another object is closer than the object it overlaps. When things get further away, the detail is lost. Therefore, things closer have lots of detail and things progressively have less detail the further away they are. Atmospheric perspective refers to how the atmosphere (the sky in the distance) affects things far away. As objects become further in the distance, the atmosphere makes them look lighter in color and gives them a bluish tint. The final technique in perspective is linear perspective. This is by far the most complicated technique. It is a mathematical theory that was "discovered" by Brunelleschi in the early 1400s.
Linear perspective was first demonstrated by Brunelleschi. He painted the lines of different Florentine buildings on a mirror. He became aware that the lines converged on the horizon line. According to Vasari, he then set up a demonstration of his painting of the Baptistery and a mirror to prove that there was linear perspective. Donatello is considered the first artist to use linear perspective in his Feast of Herod, c.1425, a bronze relief panel done for the font of the Siena cathedral. Leon Battista Alberti (1404 to 1474) was the first person to explain in writing the theory of perspective. He did this in Della Pittura in 1435. Masaccio (1401 to c. 1428) is quite famous for his use of linear perspective. His Trinity, painted in 1427 is considered to be the first, surviving painting that shows linear perspective. (www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit11/unit11.html) Linear perspective created a huge stir in the Renaissance world. It literally changed everything.
Perspective fascinated artists and became the rule for how to see and thus, depict the world. Perspective ruled until the late 1800s when artists began to purposely break the rules of perspective. Van Gogh certainly did this (it can be seen in a number of his interiors) and the disregarding of perspective continued in many art movements, such as Cubism, to the point where everything in the picture appeared flat with the work of abstraction.
For my unit, I am focusing on 3 aspects of perspective: points of view, illusions of depth and linear perspective. The points of view are worm's eye view (looking up from very low on the ground-this view point will explored more fully in the 8th grade when the students are required to master one point, two point and three point perspective), human's eye view (or what is sometimes called profile when discussing maps) (Buisseret p. 18)), bird's eye view (which is when one sees something obliquely or diagonally from a vantage point high in the sky), and aerial or satellite (in my teaching I will be using the term satellite view because I think it will be a clear way for the students to differentiate between bird's eye view and satellite view) view (which is when one looks down directly on something, or what Buisseret calls the planimetric view). In many sources and websites there is an interchangeability of the terms bird's eye view and aerial view. For my unit, I want to differentiate between the two. I feel the students would be confused if I used the terms interchangeably. So, as I stated before, I will use bird's eye to refer to things seen obliquely and satellite to refer to things seen directly from overhead. I will also focus on the illusions of depth, particular the first 5. These the students will be expected to, not only thoroughly understand, but also be able to use effectively. Linear perspective will be introduced and experimented with but I will not expect them to be able to effectively use it.
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