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Why is perspective so hard?

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With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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http://www.painters-online.co.uk/articles-tips-advice/view,perspective-made-easy_5343.htm Clever POL put this article by Winston Oh on Facebook - worth a read.

Dippy Dipper

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Perspective isn't THAT hard. On scrap paper: ♦ decide where your horizon line (even if it's not in the picture as a flat line) will be - low, medium, high. ♦ On the left hand edge of the paper, put a dot. ♦ Now you decide the depth of your image - very deep or a shallow image. ♦ Draw two to four lines FROM that dot, angled up for two and down for two, separated by a little. Make the angles narrow (closer lines at the ends.) or wider (lined further apart at the ends) to suit your chosen depth. Now all you need do is align horizontal lines in your drawing to those lines, pick the lines that fit your object (bottom of houses below the horizon line = use the lower lines) These give an idea:

Derek Snowdon

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That's a good usueful explanation and diagrams for DD. I never learned it, it was just there. No help to David I am sure but I have always had a desire to get it correct and often crit/comment when someone has it wrong. It will come mate, observation and practice.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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The perspective issue was a touch more complicated than lines of buildings, sight lines etc - had to do with foreshortening, size of objects, hands in this case, relative to each other..... see the Caravaggio up above. Unfortunately, no diagram is going to help with that - or not very much anyway. There are ways of doing it using perspective lines, but probably you're going to rely on the naked eye and judgement, rather than impose grids on the work - it's a fiddly process if you do - and consequently, I wouldn't. But whatever works for you....

Dippy Dipper

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Syd is partly right - we DO see the distortion of a fish-eye lens as being "too much". I feel that the artist shouldn't have tampered with the near hand, leave it large-ish... but that far hand, the right one I think, smaller and less obtrusive.

Alan Owen

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I agree with Robert I had to do lessons on perspective at art school ,everything with one disappearing point and so on,,and it is worthwhile ,it gives a beginner a good idea how it works ,,after that, its about your observation .. not everything is level in life .(the guys gutter next door is leaning all over the place and water is running in my garden making a pond) ,I think in perspective, especially painting a landscape ,,I hate perfectly square houses in a perfectly square village,, all on a perfectly straight level road

Mats Winther

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Canaletto (1697-1768) is all about perspective. He is meticulous about architecture. Some, however, think that many of his paintings are spectacularly boring. /Mats http://www.wga.hu/html_m/c/canalett/3/canal303.html

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by MWinther

With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Yes, they do (find him boring) .... and I'm not sure I'm not one of them although his historical interest is undeniable; I'm not so sure one can say as much of his artistic appeal. This is the risk you run if you seek to depict the actuality ... he'll appeal to the "ooh, it's just like a photo!" crowd, though... If his intention was to recreate reality, given there were no other means of doing so, he can't be criticized; and he's certainly capable of giving a practical lesson to those who worry about their control of perspective. He also rather illustrates the problem with the correct, precise, approach - that it can be sterile: is anything in fact that perfect, that proportionate? If painters sometimes desert the grid, the set-square, the measurement - Canaletto may show us why.

Phil Kendall

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Robert W Gill "Rendering with Pen & Ink" a Thames & Hudson Manual has an interesting section on perspective from the centre point perspective, so useful for illustrating a doorway...the classic two point perspective for that street scene to the more complex issues of the three point perspective of just one building. Perspective is that attempt to illustrate the 3D world on a 2D flat sheet. Now think of that single building your eye point could be at the bottom looking up...at the top looking down...or in the middle looking both up & down... It is here where art can take over just because lines should converge on a vanishing point...you don't have to. Just because the building should tapper to the top...you don't have to.Just because the building should taper to the bottom...you don't have to. Just because the rules of perspective say that you can't see the roof from the ground...your art can show it.
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