Reverse perspective

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Linear perspective of a cube (left) and reverse perspective (right). The viewing plane is shown in blue, with the projection point where the red lines meet. Reverse perspective.svg
Linear perspective of a cube (left) and reverse perspective (right). The viewing plane is shown in blue, with the projection point where the red lines meet.
The throne and footstool in this icon show reverse perspective, with lines converging towards the viewer. Italo-Byzantinischer Maler des 13. Jahrhunderts 001.jpg
The throne and footstool in this icon show reverse perspective, with lines converging towards the viewer.

Reverse perspective, also called inverse perspective, [1] inverted perspective, [2] divergent perspective, [3] [4] or Byzantine perspective, [5] is a form of perspective drawing in which the objects depicted in a scene are placed between the projective point and the viewing plane. Objects farther away from the viewing plane are drawn as larger, and closer objects are drawn as smaller, in contrast to the more conventional linear perspective for which closer objects appear larger. [3] Lines that are parallel in three-dimensional space are drawn as diverging against the horizon, rather than converging as they do in linear perspective. [1] Technically, the vanishing points are placed outside the painting with the illusion that they are "in front of" the painting.

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The name Byzantine perspective comes from the use of this perspective in Byzantine and Russian Orthodox icons; it is also found in the art of many pre-Renaissance cultures, and was sometimes used in Cubism and other movements of modern art, as well as in children's drawings. [3] [4] The reasons for the convention are still debated among art historians; [6] since the artists involved in forming the convention did not have access to the more realistic linear perspective convention, it is not clear how deliberate the effects achieved were. [7]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ibn al-Haytham</span> Arab physicist, mathematician and astronomer (c. 965 – c. 1040)

Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham was a medieval mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age from present-day Iraq. Referred to as "the father of modern optics", he made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception in particular. His most influential work is titled Kitāb al-Manāẓir, written during 1011–1021, which survived in a Latin edition. The works of Alhazen were frequently cited during the scientific revolution by Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Christiaan Huygens, and Galileo Galilei.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Optics</span> Branch of physics that studies light

Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light. Light is a type of electromagnetic radiation, and other forms of electromagnetic radiation such as X-rays, microwaves, and radio waves exhibit similar properties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camera obscura</span> Optical device

A camera obscura is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted and reversed projection of the view outside.

The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a system converges light, while a negative focal length indicates that the system diverges light. A system with a shorter focal length bends the rays more sharply, bringing them to a focus in a shorter distance or diverging them more quickly. For the special case of a thin lens in air, a positive focal length is the distance over which initially collimated (parallel) rays are brought to a focus, or alternatively a negative focal length indicates how far in front of the lens a point source must be located to form a collimated beam. For more general optical systems, the focal length has no intuitive meaning; it is simply the inverse of the system's optical power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isometric projection</span> Method for visually representing three-dimensional objects

Isometric projection is a method for visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions in technical and engineering drawings. It is an axonometric projection in which the three coordinate axes appear equally foreshortened and the angle between any two of them is 120 degrees.

In photography and cinematography, a normal lens is a lens that reproduces a field of view that appears "natural" to a human observer. In contrast, depth compression and expansion with shorter or longer focal lengths introduces noticeable, and sometimes disturbing, distortion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Depth perception</span> Visual ability to perceive the world in 3D

Depth perception is the ability to perceive distance to objects in the world using the visual system and visual perception. It is a major factor in perceiving the world in three dimensions. Depth perception happens primarily due to stereopsis and accommodation of the eye.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perspective (graphical)</span> Form of graphical projection where the projection lines converge to one or more points

Linear or point-projection perspective is one of two types of graphical projection perspective in the graphic arts; the other is parallel projection. Linear perspective is an approximate representation, generally on a flat surface, of an image as it is seen by the eye. Perspective drawing is useful for representing a three-dimensional scene in a two-dimensional medium, like paper. It is based on the optical fact that for a person an object looks N times (linearly) smaller if it has been moved N times further from the eye than the original distance was.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autostereogram</span> Visual illusion of 3D scene achieved by unfocusing eyes when viewing specific 2D images

An autostereogram is a two-dimensional (2D) image that can create the optical illusion of a three-dimensional (3D) scene. Autostereograms use only one image to accomplish the effect while normal stereograms require two. The 3D scene in an autostereogram is often unrecognizable until it is viewed properly, unlike typical stereograms. Viewing any kind of stereogram properly may cause the viewer to experience vergence-accommodation conflict.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magnification</span> Process of enlarging the apparent size of something

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of optics</span>

Optics began with the development of lenses by the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians, followed by theories on light and vision developed by ancient Greek philosophers, and the development of geometrical optics in the Greco-Roman world. The word optics is derived from the Greek term τα ὀπτικά meaning 'appearance, look'. Optics was significantly reformed by the developments in the medieval Islamic world, such as the beginnings of physical and physiological optics, and then significantly advanced in early modern Europe, where diffractive optics began. These earlier studies on optics are now known as "classical optics". The term "modern optics" refers to areas of optical research that largely developed in the 20th century, such as wave optics and quantum optics.

In Gaussian optics, the cardinal points consist of three pairs of points located on the optical axis of a rotationally symmetric, focal, optical system. These are the focal points, the principal points, and the nodal points; there are two of each. For ideal systems, the basic imaging properties such as image size, location, and orientation are completely determined by the locations of the cardinal points; in fact, only four points are necessary: the two focal points and either the principal points or the nodal points. The only ideal system that has been achieved in practice is a plane mirror, however the cardinal points are widely used to approximate the behavior of real optical systems. Cardinal points provide a way to analytically simplify an optical system with many components, allowing the imaging characteristics of the system to be approximately determined with simple calculations.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zograscope</span>

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In human visual perception, the visual angle, denoted θ, subtended by a viewed object sometimes looks larger or smaller than its actual value. One approach to this phenomenon posits a subjective correlate to the visual angle: the perceived visual angle or perceived angular size. An optical illusion where the physical and subjective angles differ is then called a visual angle illusion or angular size illusion.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathematics and art</span> Relationship between mathematics and art

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References

  1. 1 2 Hopkins, Robert (1998), Picture, Image and Experience: A Philosophical Inquiry, Cambridge University Press, p. 157, ISBN   9780521582599 .
  2. Rauschenbach, Boris V. (1983), "On my concept of perceptual perspective that accounts for parallel and inverted perspective in pictorial art", Leonardo, 16 (1): 28–30, doi:10.2307/1575038, JSTOR   1575038, S2CID   192987663 .
  3. 1 2 3 Kulvicki, John V. (2006), On Images : Their Structure and Content, Oxford University Press, pp. 102–105, ISBN   9780191537455 .
  4. 1 2 Howard, Ian P.; Allison, Robert S. (2011), "Drawing with divergent perspective, ancient and modern" (PDF), Perception, 40 (9): 1017–1033, doi:10.1068/p6876, PMID   22208125, S2CID   11085186 .
  5. Deregowski, Jan B.; Parker, Denis M.; Massironi, Manfredo (1994), "The perception of spatial structure with oblique viewing: an explanation for Byzantine perspective?", Perception, 23 (1): 5–13, doi:10.1068/p230005, PMID   7936976, S2CID   16046480 .
  6. Antonova, Clemena (2010), "On the problem of "reverse perspective": definitions east and west", Leonardo, 43 (5): 464–469, doi:10.1162/LEON_a_00039, S2CID   57559265, The author ... identifies six distinct views on reverse perspective, some of which are mutually exclusive.
  7. Antonova, Clemena (2010), Space, Time, and Presence in the Icon: Seeing the World with the Eyes of God, Ashgate studies in the history of philosophical theology, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., p. 54, ISBN   9780754667988, In the case of "reverse perspective", on the other hand, there is no evidence that icon-painters had recourse to mathematically correct systems of measurement to enable them to represent vanishing point systems".

See also