DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1183#0020
EDUCATION OF THE EYE. O
Latin words per, through, and specto, to view), is the art of drawing the
several objects as they appear when traced upon a glass, or transparent
medium; the art of drawing in perspective, therefore, is nothing more
than representing the various objects subject to those laws which regulate
their appearance in nature3.
science as in policy. Complication is a species of confederacy which, while it continues united,
bids defiance to the most active and vigorous intellect, but of which every member is separately
weak, and which may therefore be quickly subdued if it can be broken. The chief art of learning',
as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time; the widest excursions of the mind are
made by short flights frequently repeated."—Dr. Johnson.
3 " It was in the sixteenth century that Perspective, a new branch of optics, was revived, or
rather invented; this is more a business of geometry than optics, and is indeed more an art than
a science; but since it is derived from optical principles, and as the use of it is to give pleasure to
the eye by a just representation of natural objects, I would do wrong not to give a short account
of its rise and progress. The art of perspective owes its birth to painting, and particularly to that
branch of it which was employed in the decorations of the theatre, where landscapes were
principally introduced, and which would have looked unnatural and horrid if the size of the
objects had not been pretty nearly proportioned to their distance from the eye. We learn from
Vitruvius that Agatharchus, instructed by Eschylus, was the first who wrote upon the subject, and
that afterwards the principles of this art were more distinctly taught by Democritus and
Anaxagoras, the disciples of Agatharchus. Of the theory of this art, as described by them, we
know nothing, since none of their writings have escaped the general wreck that was made of
ancient literature in the dark ages of Europe. However, the revival of painting in Italy was
accompanied with a revival of this art. The first person who attempted to lay down the rules of
perspective was Pietro del Borgo, an Italian. He supposed objects to be placed beyond a
transparent tablet, and endeavoured to trace the images which rays of light emitted from them
would make upon it; but we do not know what success he had in this attempt, because the book
which he wrote upon the subject is not now extant. It is, however, very much commended by
the famous Egnazio Dante; and upon the principles of Borgo, Albert Durer constructed a
machine, by which he could trace the perspective appearance of objects. Balthazar Perussi
studied the writings of Borgo, and endeavoured to make them more intelligible; to him we owe
the discovery of points of distance, to which all lines that make an angle of forty-five degrees with
the ground line are drawn. A little time after, Guido Ubaldi, another Italian, found that all lines
that are parallel to one another, if they be inclined to the ground line, converge to some point in
the horizontal line, and that through this point also a line drawn from the eye, parallel to them,
will pass. These principles put together enabled him to make out a pretty complete theory of
perspective."—Priestley's Optics.
Since then the Jesuits' Perspective, Brook Taylor s, Malton's, and others, have rendered the
most difficult and intricate diagrams clear and comprehensible.
Latin words per, through, and specto, to view), is the art of drawing the
several objects as they appear when traced upon a glass, or transparent
medium; the art of drawing in perspective, therefore, is nothing more
than representing the various objects subject to those laws which regulate
their appearance in nature3.
science as in policy. Complication is a species of confederacy which, while it continues united,
bids defiance to the most active and vigorous intellect, but of which every member is separately
weak, and which may therefore be quickly subdued if it can be broken. The chief art of learning',
as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time; the widest excursions of the mind are
made by short flights frequently repeated."—Dr. Johnson.
3 " It was in the sixteenth century that Perspective, a new branch of optics, was revived, or
rather invented; this is more a business of geometry than optics, and is indeed more an art than
a science; but since it is derived from optical principles, and as the use of it is to give pleasure to
the eye by a just representation of natural objects, I would do wrong not to give a short account
of its rise and progress. The art of perspective owes its birth to painting, and particularly to that
branch of it which was employed in the decorations of the theatre, where landscapes were
principally introduced, and which would have looked unnatural and horrid if the size of the
objects had not been pretty nearly proportioned to their distance from the eye. We learn from
Vitruvius that Agatharchus, instructed by Eschylus, was the first who wrote upon the subject, and
that afterwards the principles of this art were more distinctly taught by Democritus and
Anaxagoras, the disciples of Agatharchus. Of the theory of this art, as described by them, we
know nothing, since none of their writings have escaped the general wreck that was made of
ancient literature in the dark ages of Europe. However, the revival of painting in Italy was
accompanied with a revival of this art. The first person who attempted to lay down the rules of
perspective was Pietro del Borgo, an Italian. He supposed objects to be placed beyond a
transparent tablet, and endeavoured to trace the images which rays of light emitted from them
would make upon it; but we do not know what success he had in this attempt, because the book
which he wrote upon the subject is not now extant. It is, however, very much commended by
the famous Egnazio Dante; and upon the principles of Borgo, Albert Durer constructed a
machine, by which he could trace the perspective appearance of objects. Balthazar Perussi
studied the writings of Borgo, and endeavoured to make them more intelligible; to him we owe
the discovery of points of distance, to which all lines that make an angle of forty-five degrees with
the ground line are drawn. A little time after, Guido Ubaldi, another Italian, found that all lines
that are parallel to one another, if they be inclined to the ground line, converge to some point in
the horizontal line, and that through this point also a line drawn from the eye, parallel to them,
will pass. These principles put together enabled him to make out a pretty complete theory of
perspective."—Priestley's Optics.
Since then the Jesuits' Perspective, Brook Taylor s, Malton's, and others, have rendered the
most difficult and intricate diagrams clear and comprehensible.