Creative Perspective for Artists and Illustrators (Dover Art Instruction) by Ernest W. Watson

Author:Ernest W. Watson [Watson, Ernest W.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780486137735
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

148 A

148 B

149

150

Even more convincing than the diagrams here that prove it on paper is a simple experiment with a cardboard circle, preferably a very large one. Hold the model in a horizontal position at arm’s length a few inches below eye-level. Better yet, lay it on a shelf about ten inches below eye-level. Now place the point of a pencil on the back rim of the circle and slowly move it forward on the circumference toward the front until it reaches a point that seems to be the extreme right-hand boundary of the circle. Mark this point on the model. Do the same on the other side. Now take the model down and connect the two points with a line. That line, it will be discovered, is not the diameter of the circle: it lies in front of it. Now draw the actual diameter of the circle with a dotted line and put the model back on the shelf. What is seen will resemble fig. 150.

The explanation is simple enough. Though actually shorter than the circle’s diameter, the long axis of the ellipse looks longer because it is nearer the eye. The closer the observer is to the circle the more widely separated are the axis of the ellipse and the diameter of the circle. This fact the student should verify by his own experiments.

The experiment would be more dramatic if the model were a huge circular fountain, and an assistant, walking from behind the fountain toward us, would put markers at the points where he appeared to reach the circle’s extremity—first at the right, then at the left. We would perhaps be surprised to learn how far the ellipse’s long diameter would lie in front of the circle’s center. The accompanying photograph of automobiles parked in a circle on Great Bear Lake, on page 76, is an excellent demonstration of this phenomenon.

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