Studies on Binocular Vision by Dominique Raynaud

Author:Dominique Raynaud
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

The analysis of pre-perspectives—that is, the modes of representing three-dimensional space in use before the introduction of linear perspective—poses specific problems. The first stems from the great variety of perspective approaches that characterize paintings produced before the Cinquecento. The second arises out of the largely conjectural nature of the interpretations that have been proposed. Let us examine these two points in detail.1.Before the principles of linear perspective were adopted in the Renaissance, painters and architects experimented with different systems of representation. Some works from the Middle Ages were composed using an oblique perspective (a form of parallel perspective that in reality has no connection with linear perspective apart from its name) or different axonometric techniques. To cite just one example, Giotto di Bondone did not hesitate to use more than one system at a time. For the frescoes in the upper church of the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, painted between 1296 and 1305,1 he and his assistants employed an oblique perspective for Extasis, an exploded view for The Death of the Knight of Celano and a two-fold exploded view for The Recovery of the Wounded Man of Lerida, but also a dimetric perspective for The Founding of the Order of Saint Clare, a central perspective for The Apparition to Gregorius IX, and a two-point perspective for St. Francis Preaching Before Pope Honorius III. This spectrum of approaches employed by the same atelier over the period of a decade illustrates the broad range of techniques that were in use before a consensus was reached and the preference for linear perspective took root. In any case, it ought to come as no surprise to find a nascent artistic movement accompanied by uncoordinated individual initiatives. In this context the history of pre-perspective techniques was anything but linear.

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