- Perspective as we know it is hundreds of years old. Brunelleschi systematized it in the period of the Italian Renaissance. Prior to this, artists showed, on two-dimensional surfaces, the angles and distortions of how tables, glasses or other objects appear to human vision in three dimensions. Perspective takes a comprehensive view. It shows individual or multiple objects plausibly in a unified space, such as a public square or interior.
- One-point perspective is the simplest. A single point, situated on the horizon, is the target point for all parallel lines. Think of a box, placed on a surface directly in front of you and slightly below eye level. You see the front and face only. The front is drawn as a rectangle. The edges on the top face appear to project backward into space. These edges are parallel. If you followed them infinitely, they would, just like the sides of a distant highway, meet. The convergence of those lines, to that one point, in this case, helps you render how things seem smaller as they get farther away.
- Turn your box to the side, slightly. Now you see more of it. You also have another set of parallel lines. One set of lines leads to the right, a second set leads to the left, instead of directly behind the box. For this, you need two points. Similar to one-point perspective, if you draw out parallels to the right and left, each set of parallels shall meet and create the depth illusion.
- Now tilt the box on edge. Instead of clean verticals, you create a skew form. The lines you could easily draw as parallels may now be distorted. The parallels of the once-verticals will actually meet somewhere far above the object. Three-point perspective is a special case. Artists do not use it frequently. You can, though, see the principle operates as in one- and two-point perspective and employ it for special renderings when required.
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