Perspective (graphical)

“ The kind of perspective drawings I told you how to do under the caption of Drawing in Perspective is true perspective but engineers do drawings which they call isometric perspective, that is, while the object seems to stand out in relief there are no vanishing points. ”

“ You can provide yourself with a good deal of amusement and useful instruction by searching for perspective, not only in your own paintings and drawings, but in the work of other people.
Study pictures in books and magazines, and photographs in the daily papers, and you will find endless examples of perspective. ”

“ The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these, the first includes the diminution in size of opaque objects; the second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of colour at long distances. ”

“ By what art or mystery, what craft of selection, omission or commission, does a given picture of life appear to us to surround its theme, its figures and images, with the air of romance while another picture close beside it may affect us as steeping the whole matter in the element of reality? It is a question, no doubt, on the painter's part, very much more of perceived effect, effect after the fact, than of conscious design—though indeed I have ever failed to see how a coherent picture of anything is producible save by a complex of fine measurements. ”

“ It is strange to think how a scene, in itself uninteresting, becomes agreeable to look at in a picture, from the truth with which it is depicted, and a perfection of colouring which at once contrasts and harmonises the hues of sky and water. ”

“ To judge the image as a picture is judged, would, as we have seen, be absurd; and what is sought in poetry by those painters and others whose interest in the world is primarily visual is not pictures but records of observation, or stimuli of emotion. ”

“ It is true that in looking at this huge composition you look at many pictures; it has not only a multitude of figures but a wealth of episodes; and you pass from one of these to the other as if you were "doing" a gallery. Surely no single picture in the world contains more of human life; there is everything in it, including the most exquisite beauty. ”

“ But in each of these lines the mind takes in a wide horizon, comprising a multitude of objects at once, as the eye takes in a picture, with scene, and action, and figures, fore-ground and background, all at once. ”

“ In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. ”

“ For all life rests on appearance, art, illusion, optics, the need for perspective and for error. ”

“ And so far from the impressive clearness of the picture vanishing in the crowd of images, it is by these images that the clearness is produced: the details make it impressive, and affect our imagination. ”

“ There is enough in the picture which is familiar to your actual senses through experience to brace your imagination for a grasp of the unfamiliar elements. The wide plain, the river hurrying between green banks—no apperceptive background fails thus far in the picture. What do we mean by apperceptive background? Let us investigate for a moment the psychology involved in the art of "making pictures." ”

“ It is a finished picture, delineating almost every variety of human character, crowded with figures, whose lineaments no lapse of time, no change of manners, can render faint or indistinct, and which will retain, to the latest centuries, every stroke of outline and every tint of color, as sharp and as vivid as when they came from the master’s hand. ”

“ When in nature we observe a scene that naturally fits a frame and we find ourselves gazing first at one object and then at another and returning again to the first, we may be sure it will make a picture. ”

“ Nothing, within the picture, occurs; nothing is done or, more acutely than usual, than everywhere, suffered; it is all a mere affair of the rich impression, the complexity of images projected upon the quintessential spirit of the hero, whose own report is what we have—an affair of the quality of observation, sentiment and eloquence brought to bear. It is not too much to say even that the whole thing is in the largest sense but a theme for style, style of substance as well as of form. ”

“ The bloom on a cheek, the warmth of a youthful body, the sweetness and freshness of a fruit, the edge of a sharp knife, are not these, too, impressions obtainable from a picture? Are they visual? What would a picture mean to an imaginary man, lacking all or many of his senses, who should in an instant acquire the organ of sight alone? ”

“ When the presentation of a picture is our central purpose, we attempt to present it as it appears to us, and select details that will enable others to form the desired image; but if we desire to set forth how a scene affected us, we must choose details that will make our reader feel as we felt.
+137. Necessity of Observing our Impressions.+—In order to write a description which shall give our impression of an object or scene, we must know definitely what that impression is. ”

“ No matter what the field of view means, he sees it also as it feels—that is, as a collection of patches of color bounded by lines—the whole forming an optical diagram of whose intrinsic proportions one who is not an artist has hardly a conscious inkling. ”

“ With the consummate literary artists the picture, whether it be of a real scene, an imagined scene, or a feeling, is given in few but effective strokes. And it is so given simply because they see it all so distinctly. ”

“ The way one expresses himself in pictures or writing, and the way one interprets illustration or text, thus reflects the level of organization which the mind itself has reached. The single figure, the composition, the pictorial series and the textual description mark successive stages in the evolution of representative functions in the individual human mind. ”

“ Balance The conception of balance clearly understood in the length, the height and the depth of a picture contains the whole truth of pictorial composition. The elements which war against unity and which we seek to extract, reveal themselves as the disturbers of balance and are to be found when the principles of balance are put into motion.
Does divided interest vex us, the foreground absorbing so much interest that the background, where the real subject may lie, struggles in vain for its right; then we may know that the balance through the depth of the picture has been disturbed. ”

“ First we shall work with symbols of description and visualization, of which for convenience we may distinguish four sorts shading one into the other, not clearly defined, and yet worth discussing, that we may cultivate a sharper sense of qualities of effectiveness in visualization. ”

“ In the lights of a picture, attention to this rule is indispensable, where it is necessary to distinguish, with so much correctness of detail, those very objects which in shadow would permit that intimacy of union which would almost make them appear as one. ”

“ For it is most, doubtless, the æsthetic appetite in you—long richly fed elsewhere—that goes unassuaged; it is your sense of the comprehensive picture as a comprehensive picture that winces, for recognition of loss, like a touched nerve. ”

“ There are some pictures, which impress one, I know not how, with a conviction that they represent not the mere ideal shapes and combinations which have floated through the imagination of the artist, but scenes, faces, and situations which have actually existed. ”

“ The distinct and graphic imagery of men, scenes, events, objects and their properties, with which he has stored his mind, will give correctness to his ideas, variety to his mental operations, comprehensiveness to his intellectual view, clearness to his judgment, and truth to his conclusions. ”

“ This second purpose is what makes the picture a work of art. And we found that the artist, in order to make his composition give pleasure to our sense of sight, relies upon the pleasure that we derive from repetition and contrast, and upon the instinct that we all have for keeping our balance. The elements of composition, in fact, are repetition and contrast in a state of balance, sometimes with the added charm of rhythm. ”

“ A visual image is the most perfect form of mental representation wherever [Pg 189] the shape, position and relation of objects in space are concerned. It is of importance in every handicraft and profession where design is required. The best workmen are those who visualize the whole of what they propose to do before they take a tool in their hands. ”

“ Out of these few elements the artist has constructed a picture which it is impossible to forget, of which the most striking characteristic is its simplicity, and yet which overflows with perfection. Painted with extraordinary breadth and freedom, so that surface and texture are interpreted by the lightest hand, it glows with life, character and distinction, and strikes us as the most complete—with one exception perhaps—of the author’s productions. ”

“ You find yourself in the midst of a landscape, and there is an image at the back of your eye. The manner in which you accept and interpret this image bears the mark of your personality and also of a crowd of other personalities which you call to your aid without knowing it. ”

“ My argument is, that the generic images that arise before the mind's eye, and the general impressions which are faint and faulty editions of them, are the analogues of these composite pictures which we have the advantage of examining at leisure, and whose peculiarities and character we can investigate, and from which we may draw conclusions that shall throw much light on the nature of certain mental processes which are too mobile and evanescent to be directly dealt with. ”

“ So that, if I say that the greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind of the spectator the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a definition which will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure which art is capable of conveying. ”

“ Others, on the contrary, utter the word realistic before a picture strongly felt representing a scene of ordinary life, while they apply that of symbolic to another picture that is but a cold allegory. ”

“ The significance of a picture, according to the cognoscenti, must be implicit in its forms; its essential quality is something which appeals directly to the sensibility of any sensitive person; and any reference to life, to be of consequence, must be a reference to that fundamental experience which is the common heritage of mankind. ”

“ In fact it represents a mixture of the classical and the naturalistic motive.
Firstly, the naturalistic. We know at a glance what the man is doing. The forms in the picture, the colors, the light and shade, make an impression on the eye which is immediately telegraphed to one of the centers of the brain. The result is that we know the picture represents a man in a field sowing{97} grain, while from the color and light in the sky, and the shadows creeping over the field, we know that it is twilight. ”

“ The picture writing, which prevailed among them, and in which they had attained so high a degree of perfection, was precisely the material on which to build traditionary lore, and cultivate a taste for it among the common people. ”

“ They leave it to their drudges, the Reading Public, to accumulate the facts, to arrange the evidence, to make out the data, and like great painters whose pupils have got in the ground-work and the established proportions of a picture, come forward to go over the last thin glazing of the colours, or throw in the finer touches of expression. ”

“ There should be in most pictures an opportunity of saying that which shall be interpreted by each one according to his temperament, a little place where each may delight in setting free his own imagination. ”

“ The intermediate picture, as it may be called—the human artist's work—is itself seen perspectively. If the tower were so high that the sides, though parallel, appeared to meet in a point, the picture must also be so high that the picture-sides, though parallel, would appear to meet in a point. ”

“ Many representations of the front view are so diagrammatic as to be scarcely recognizable. Some of the processes that lead to conventionalism are simply short cuts to the artist's goal, the goal being to convey a given impression. ”

“ If the picture is a quiet one, exclamatory excitement on the part of the writer, however affecting the scene may be supposed to be, will prevent its becoming real to the reader. These things are, then, to be borne in mind with regard to the elements of a visualization: the details presented must be so far true to common [27] knowledge and experience as to gain ready belief, they must have unity in fact and in effect, and they must also be sufficiently individual to appeal to the mind with something of the sense of novelty. ”

“ Unless this demand for sensorially, intellectually and empathically desirable shapes be complied with a work of art may be interesting as a diagram, a record or an illustration, but once the facts have been conveyed and assimilated with the rest of our knowledge, there will remain a shape which we shall never want to lay eyes upon. ”

“ I have said that the first and principal part of art is Composition, or placing things together appropriately; the situation, motion, and expression of the figures; their shapes, and lights, and shadows, according. A perfect outline is of most consequence, and can only be acquired by study. ”