Perspectives of Disappearance

Da Vinci explored how things appear over distance. He observed they  not only appear smaller, they also change their shape and  edges.  Over long distances he noticed first  a horse’s legs disappear, then its neck and head. They evolve into a single dark shape which he concluded was an oval. It’s not but, he got the basic idea right.  Edges lose their definition over distance.  Things blend together. He also observed that colors changed over distance. Yellows especially lose their chromatic strength.  He thought these effects were due to operations in the eye. He was getting closer to understanding. But he failed to observe and explore other phenomena.

Da Vinci didn’t pursue investigations into peripheral vision. He  did observe that the Linear perspective’s system for assigning objects a size diminishing across distance did not accommodate  lateral distances  like the size of columns on building moving off to the left or right. They not only get smaller in the forward distance but also,  laterally at the sides of our vision.  He understood focus areas shift. He knew we refocused frequently and were attracted to contrast and light.  But, he  didn’t observe the rate of degrading focus away from the center of our vision.

Our eyes generally refocus (search and find another area of focus) at the rate of 4 per second. They are instructed by the brain where to aim and relay their electric-chemical stream through the optic nerve to the brain. Here they are  parsed and matched to our brain’s expectations, an endless feedback loop.  Reality is on a delay as our brain takes time for signals to reach it and have the brain match its model of the world with arriving electrical-chemical information.  Some information like color gets processed before shape. The brain takes time to give  us about a unified illusory reality. It’s  a fiction but a useful one.  Otherwise the world would appear very confused.  Da Vinci didn’t look for peripheral blurring because, he didn’t see it.   He didn’t know what to look for. He didn’t understand what it looked like any more than ancient Assyrians could have understood  illusions of linear perspective without visual training. To them variably sized pictured information was little or big not,  near or far.

Today we have learned to use tools like cameras which vividly illustrate peripherally smeared visuals. Now we see  correlations with our own biological vision just as we perceive blurred information as movement.  These were not pictured in 14th century because, they didn’t exist as the category of knowledge  we have today.  Just as Galileo with his telescope saw the topography of the moon for the first time. No one believed that the moon could have earthlike topography because, it was not thought  possible. Orbs closer to heaven had to be more perfect, smooth. Philosophy demanded it.

Piranesi, an 18th century printmaker used linear perspective to make his artworks. He ran into trouble trying to make domes and cylinders in perspective. His picturing system could not accommodate his visual experience so, he discounted the experience.  Example 1 shows us his view into Rome’s pantheon. Today, we see its weaknesses. He tried to give a grand sense of scale, to make the interior feel huge by making the people incredibly small. He didn’t put the people in motion because, he didn’t know how to suggest motion by blurring them. He didn’t know how to progressively degrade the focus from the center of his vision to generate a stronger or more lifelike illusion. For most of us we still believe we see like photos with sharpness everywhere.  Those who study vision realize what a fiction this is!

example 1. Piranesi, The Pantheon.

I am going to show you artists who have moved on with the study of the perspective of disappearance to include peripheral focus degradation, artists like Turner.  Example 2 presents a painting of an interior in a castle by Turner. Notice the only sharp edges are in the center of the visual field. Where there is bright glaring light as there is under the central archway then, the glare of the light obscures our vision, our edge detection skills.

Example 2. Turner, interior.

In 1850 William Holman Hunt tried to infuse exaggerated realism into his work by reducing the effects of the perspective of disappearance. The result looks naive like art before Raphael which was his point since he was a member of the pre-Raphaelite group.  With Hunt all things have sharp focused edges. See example 3.   A contemporary, John Raven paints a field of flowers using the standard perspective of disappearance principles of Da Vinci.  We see how details merge and blend in his distance ( example 4).

example 3. Wm Holman Hunt.

example 4. John Raven.

I have four examples of the perspective of disappearance.  The First, leaves on water, relies mostly on Da Vinci’s principles ( example 5 ). The focus and scale of the subject matter diminish over distance.  But, the surface of the water moves in and out of focus as it both advances and recedes. In example 6 , an aerial view of Manhattan, notice the  buildings gain in acuity and chromatic variety and strength in the center of the image.  The color and edge contrast diminishes as we move to the back as well as the front and even the sides.  Color does not sit easily within edges in our vision and, color is strongest at the center of our focused vision.

example 5.  Leaves on Water.

example 6. Manhattan Profile.

Example 8  ( an interior of Grand Central Station ) presents mostly degraded focus like Turner’s work.  Its edges dissolving especially at the periphery. This  gives the scene a feeling of both atmosphere and motion.

example 8. Grand Central Station Interior.