G. A. Storey

“ Leonardo da Vinci tells us in his celebrated Treatise on Painting that the young artist should first of all learn perspective, that is to say, he should first of all learn that he has to depict on a flat surface objects which are in relief or distant one from the other; for this is the simple art of painting. Objects appear smaller at a distance than near to us, so by drawing them thus we give depth to our canvas. The outline of a ball is a mere flat circle, but with proper shading we make it appear round, and this is the perspective of light and shade. ”

“ It is not an uncommon error to suppose that the vertical lines of a high building should converge towards the top; so they would if we stood at the foot of that building and looked up, for then we should alter the conditions of our perspective, and our point of sight, instead of being on the horizon, would be up in the sky. But if we stood sufficiently far away, so as to bring the whole of the building within our angle of vision, and the point of sight down to the horizon, then these same lines would appear perfectly parallel, and the different stories in their true proportion. ”

“ Again, if we are sitting in a gallery of pictures with a hand mirror, we can so turn and twist that mirror about that we can bring any picture in front of us, whether it is behind us, at the side, or even on the ceiling. Indeed, when one goes to those old palaces and churches where pictures are painted on the ceiling, as in the Sistine Chapel or the Louvre, or the palaces at Venice, it is not a bad plan to take a hand mirror with us, so that we can see those elevated works of art in comfort. ”

“ Unfortunately, at our picture exhibitions, we see too often that nearly all the works, whether on large or small canvases, are painted for the line, and that those which happen to get high up look as if they were toppling over, because they have such a high horizontal line; and instead of the figures telling against the sky, as in this picture of the ‘Infant’ by Velasquez, the Reynolds, and the fat man treading on a flag, we have fields or sea or distant landscape almost to the top of the frame, and all, so methinks, because the perspective is not sufficiently considered. ”

“ Of course the cylindrical canvas is necessary for panoramas; but we have, as a rule, to paint our pictures and wall-decorations on flat surfaces, and therefore must adapt our work to these conditions.
In all cases the artist must exercise his own judgement both in the arrangement of his design and the execution of the work, for there is perspective even in the touch—a painting to be looked at from a distance requires a bold and broad handling; in small cabinet pictures that we live with in our own rooms we look for the exquisite workmanship of the best masters. ”

“ Although illusion is by no means the highest form of art, there is no picture painted on a flat surface that gives such a wonderful appearance of truth as that painted on a cylindrical canvas, such as those panoramas of ‘Paris during the Siege’, exhibited some years ago; ‘The Battle of Trafalgar’, only lately shown at Earl's Court; and many others. In these pictures the spectator is in the centre of a cylinder, and although he turns round to look at the scene the point of sight is always in front of him, or nearly so. I believe on the canvas these points are from 12 to 16 feet apart. ”

“ Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of any great artist making his perspective very wrong, for if he can draw the human figure as the Greeks did, surely he can draw an angle.
The Japanese, who are great observers of nature, seem to have got at their perspective by copying what they saw, and, although they are not quite correct in a few things, they convey the idea of distance and make their horizontal planes look level, which are two important things in perspective. Some of their landscapes are beautiful ”

“ In an extended view or landscape seen from a height, we have to consider the perspective plane as in a great measure lying above it, reaching from the base of the picture to the horizon; but of course pierced here and there by trees, mountains, buildings, &c. As a rule in such cases, we copy our perspective from nature, and do not trouble ourselves much about mathematical rules. ”

“ When we have a front view of a figure such as a square, its perspective and geometrical appearance is the same, and we see it as it really is, that is, with all its sides equal and all its angles right angles, the perspective only varying in size according to the distance we are from it; but if we place that square flat on the table and look at it sideways or at an angle, then we become conscious of certain changes in its form—the side farthest from us appears shorter than that near to us, 7 and all the angles are different. ”

“ The wonderful effect of distance in Turner's pictures is not to be achieved by mere measurement, and indeed can only be properly done by studying Nature and drawing her perspective as she presents it to us. ”

“ I cannot help thinking that the reason our public monuments so often fail to impress us with any sense of grandeur is in a great measure owing to the neglect of the scientific study of perspective. As an illustration of what I mean, let the student look at a good engraving or photograph of the Arch of Constantine at Rome, or the Tombs of the Medici, by Michelangelo, in the sacristy of San Lorenzo at Florence. ”

“ The plein air, or broad daylight effects, are but one item of the great range of this ever-changing and deepening mystery—from the hard reality to the soft blending of evening when form almost disappears, even to the merging of the whole landscape, nay, the whole world, into a dream—which is felt 256 rather than seen, but possesses a charm that almost defies the pencil of the painter, and can only be expressed by the deep and sweet notes of the poet and the musician. ”

“ These sun-shadows are useful in showing us the principle of light and shade, and so also are the shadows cast by artificial light; but they are only the beginning of that beautiful study, that exquisite art of tone or chiaro-oscuro, which is infinite in its variety, is full of the deepest mystery, and is the true poetry of art. ”

“ For this the student must go to Nature herself, must study her in all her moods from early dawn to sunset, in the twilight and when night sets in. No mathematical rules can help him, but only the thoughtful contemplation, the silent watching, and the mental notes that he can make and commit to memory, combining them with the sentiments to which they in turn give rise. ”

“ IV Perspective of a Point, Visual Rays, &c.
We perceive objects by means of the visual rays, which are imaginary straight lines drawn from the eye to the various points of the thing we are looking at. As those rays proceed from the pupil of the eye, which is a circular opening, they form themselves into a cone called the Optic Cone, the base of which increases in proportion to its distance from the eye, so that the larger the view which we wish to take in, the farther must we be removed from it. ”

“ There are also many uses for the mirror in the studio, well known to the artist. One is to look at one's own picture reversed, when faults become more evident; and another, when the model is required to be at a longer distance than the dimensions of the studio will admit, by drawing his reflection in the glass we double the distance he is from us.
The reason the mirror shows the fault of a work to which the eye has become accustomed is that it doubles it. Thus if a line that should be vertical is leaning to one side, in the mirror it will lean to the other ”

“ A young shepherd was in love with the daughter of a potter, but it so happened that they had to part, and were passing their last evening together, when the girl, seeing the shadow of her lover's profile cast from a lamp on to some wet plaster or on the wall, took a metal point, perhaps some sort of iron needle, and traced the outline of the face she loved on to the plaster, following carefully the outline of the features, being naturally anxious to make it as like as possible. ”

“ The Venetians often put the horizon almost on a level with the base of the picture or edge of the frame, and sometimes even below it; as in ‘The Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander’, by Paul Veronese, and ‘The Origin of the “Via Lactea”’, by Tintoretto, both in our National Gallery. But in order to do all these things, the artist in designing his work must have the knowledge of perspective at his fingers' ends, and only the details, which are often tedious, should he leave to an assistant to work out for him. ”

“ The vanishing scale, which we shall find of infinite use in our perspective, is founded on the facts explained in Rule 10. We there find that all horizontals in the same plane, which are drawn to the same point on the horizon, are perspectively parallel to each other, so that if we measure a certain height or width on the picture plane, and then from each extremity draw lines to any convenient point on the horizon, then all the perpendiculars drawn between these lines will be perspectively equal, however much they may appear to vary in length. ”

“ The science of perspective gives the dimensions of objects seen in space as they appear to the eye of the spectator, just as a perfect tracing of those objects on a sheet of glass placed vertically between him and them would do ”

“ Also he will allow for the unevenness of the ground and the roundness of our globe; he may even move his head and his eyes, and use both of them, and in fact make himself quite at his ease when he is out sketching, for Nature does all his perspective for him. At the same time, a knowledge of this rigid perspective is the sure and unerring basis of his freehand drawing. ”

“ For we must remember that the distance-point is not only the point from which we are supposed to make our tracing on the vertical transparent plane, or a point transferred to the horizon to make our measurements by, but it is also the point in front of the canvas that we view the picture from, called the station-point. It is ridiculous, then, to have it so close that we must almost touch the canvas with our noses before we can see its perspective properly. ”

“ The distance of the spectator from the picture is of great importance; as the distortions and disproportions arising from too near a view are to be avoided, the object of drawing being to make things look natural; thus, the floor should look level, and not as if it were running up hill—the top of a table flat, and not on a slant, as if cups and what not, placed upon it, would fall off.
In this figure we have a geometrical or ground plan of two squares at different distances from the picture, which is represented by the line KK. The spectator is first at A, the corner of the near square Acd. ”

“ Square A to the left of the vertical is 21⁄2 feet wide, 1 foot from the vertical and 2 feet from the base, and is worked out in the same way.
Note.—It is necessary to know how to work to scale, especially in architectural drawing, where it is indispensable, but in working 51 out our propositions and figures it is not always desirable. A given length indicated by a line is generally sufficient for our requirements. To work out every problem to scale is not only tedious and mechanical, but wastes time, and also takes the mind of the student away from the reasoning out of the subject. ”

“ There is always a certain pleasure in deceiving and being deceived by the senses, and in optical and other illusions, such as making things appear far off that are quite near, in making a picture of an object on a flat surface to look as if it stood out and in relief by a kind of magic. ”

“ Although the figures we have been drawing show the principles on which sun-shadows are shaped, still there are so many more laws to be considered in the great art of light and shade that it is better to observe them in Nature herself or under the teaching of the real sun. ”

“ The consequence is that at the very first difficulty we are left to flounder about in the dark, or to remain inactive till the master comes to our assistance.
Now in this book it is proposed to enlist the reasoning faculty from the very first: to let one problem grow out of another and to be dependent on the foregoing, as in geometry, and so to explain each thing we do that there shall be no doubt in the mind as to the correctness of the proceeding. The student will thus gain the power of finding out any new problem for himself, and will therefore acquire a true knowledge of perspective. ”

“ All lines situated in a plane that is parallel to the picture plane diminish in proportion as they become more distant, but do not undergo any perspective deformation; and remain in the same relation and proportion each to each as the original lines. ”

“ The simple principle of cast shadows is that the rays coming from the point of light or luminary pass over the top of the intervening object which casts the shadow on to the plane of shade to meet the horizontal trace of those rays on that plane, or the 231 lines of light proceed from the point of light, and the lines of the shadow are drawn from the foot or trace of the point of light. ”

“ Perspective is said to have been formed into a science about the fifteenth century. Among the names mentioned by the unknown but pleasant author of The Practice of Perspective, written by a Jesuit of Paris in the eighteenth century, we find Albert Dürer, who has left us some rules and principles in the fourth book of his Geometry; Jean Cousin, who has an express treatise on the art wherein are many valuable things; also Vignola, who altered the plans of St. Peter’s left by Michelangelo; Serlio, whose treatise is one of the best I have seen of these early writers ”

“ Apart from the aid that perspective affords the draughtsman, there is a further value in it, in that it teaches us almost a new science, which we might call the mystery of aspect, and how it is that the objects around us take so many different forms, or rather appearances, although they themselves remain the same. ”

“ Note that the perspective of the board, and the line SE, is not 14 the same as that of the cube in the picture AKB, and also that so much of the board which is behind the picture plane partially represents the Perspective-plane, supposed to be perfectly level and to extend from the base line to the horizon. Of this we shall speak further on. In nature it is not really level, but partakes in extended views of the rotundity of the earth, though in small areas such as ponds the roundness is infinitesimal. ”