The Point of View

After seeing Brunelleschi’s perspective demonstration inside the Duomo of Florence with a mirror and a painting, Alberti was hooked.  Florentines in the early 1400s celebrated Brunelleschi’s perspective illusion. He made paintings into accurate echoes of reality and they were dazzled. He won the coveted contract to build the dome for Florence’s Duomo.  Artists had a new tool and they would learn to use it or retire.

Alberti was first to publish the step-by-step process of creating a linear perspective illusion. You can find it in his book “On Painting”(Della Pittura) from 1436. He began as any urban Renaissance Italian would, with the piazza, that broad swath of pavement marking the center of town.  Life in the piazza defined Italian culture. At last artists had a mathematical system for making illusory space, for making the piazza look real.

I will show you Alberti’s system in examples 1 through 3.  First imagine you are looking through an imaginary window or at a mirror in a frame that is reflecting the image of a piazza. Rays of light  bounce off the mirror into your eyes in straight lines just as they would bounce off  the area out your window (example 1). Mirrors were a revered tool of artists. Note that you have selected only a few rays and  you have spaced them evenly along the bottom of the picture plane (mirror, window). In example 2 we connect the points along the bottom of the picture plane to a central vanishing point, the center of our focus.  In example 3 we draw parallel lines from where the green light rays intersect the side of the picture plane. We have just made the pavement of the piazza recede in space. If you turn the image sideways you can see where to place receding columns or windows or doors.

example 1. Light Rays evenly spaced.

example 2. Converging lines to the central vanishing point.

example 3. Making the Piazza appear to recede.

In the 1400s this system was scrupulously applied. Example 4 by Pinturicchio demonstrates how Alberti’s piazza grid made a persuasive illusion.  Later da Vinci would expose its limitations and develop additional perspective systems including atmospheric perspective, foveal perspective, curvilinear perspective and color perspective.

example 4. Pinturicchio from 1490s.

In my examples I applied Alberti’s piazza perspective system to a street scene with an exceptionally low point of view. The camera was placed an inch above the wet street.  Max Dunlop provided this unique point of view and I provided the painted interpretation you see in my step-by-step examples. Step one, (example 5) presents the paint (ultramarine blue and iron oxide) brushed and squeegeed over  silver anodized aluminum. Example 6 demonstrates when you rotate the image you can see the perspective system continues to create illusory space with the same principles. Example 7 presents a more enhanced version with color, a greater variety of marks, an application of color recession and an application atmospheric recession to build a stronger spatial illusion.

example 5. Step one.

example 6.Step one rotated.

example 7.Step 2 with color.

Alberti’s perspective system works with natural scenes too.  Example 9 demonstrates  zigzagging foam shapes moving back toward a common vanishing point on the sight line. Note the receding cresting waves get closer together as they approach the horizon.  Example 8 presents the first step in which a unified atmosphere is laid down with a dark foreground.

example 8. step one.

example 9. Wave and sea foam recession.

Finally, I return to the streets of Florence. In example 10 observe how the figure’s shadows assume the role of receding lines to the common vanishing point which is also the central light source. This image was painted on brushed gold anodized aluminum, which is revealed in the example.

Example 10.

Here’s my final appeal for my  “Paint the City with New Techniques and Materials” workshop at Art of the Carolinas this Sunday November 16th,2014 (Artofthecarolinas.com  or  800 827 8478 ext 156).  Friday I will be demonstrating at the Charvin display on the main floor.  Stop by and say hello.