21. Perspective Basics - 1 Point Perspective
Linear perspective is an artist's device first invented by Filippo Brunelleschi, a famous architect from Renaissance Italy. A Florentine artist, he designed the dome for their cathedral. He also taught his pupils linear perspective, and it's eye-opening to see the difference it made in art.
Here is some art before linear perspective:
And after the discovery of linear perspective:
Linear perspective enhances the realism of a drawing. To me it's mind-blowing how difficult it was for artists to draw and paint correctly before Brunelleschi's invention. But, that's the thing, linear perspective is not intuitive. And, even after having seen the correct use of it, many students still fail to grasp its principles and create work that would be physically impossible in the real world.
In this lesson I will try to simplify the basics, starting with 1-point perspective, to show you how to find it and see it in the real world, and then how to draw it.
I was lucky as an artist because, when I was a young child, my father took it upon himself to teach me how to read, before kindergarten. And, among the many children's books I read, was Maurice Sendak's One Was Johnny, a Counting Book. And, in this book there were excellent illustrations that demonstrated the basics of one-point perspective - even if they were so simple, they didn't exactly follow the rules!
It helped me understand that I could draw strange shapes like trapezoids and rhombuses that, when fit together would read as a rectangular table or door, or carpet, etc. I began applying these concepts to the rooms I was sitting in, and houses I would invent, and it bumped me up a level. By the time I got to high school, I was baffled why it took so long for artists to "learn" linear perspective - wasn't it obvious? Just look at the world around you, and observe the shapes!
So How Does Linear Perspective Work?
Strange as it sounds, it's based on the notion of drawing "sides" of an object that eventually meet at a vanishing point. And these vanishing point can be anywhere. You get to choose!
What Makes Linear Perspective So Hard?
Well, first of all, many people don't like to draw the sides of objects. They want to describe forms from just one side, because it's easier. People love silhouettes. And sometimes that works, but you can't have everything be a silhouette or the picture looks flat.
Secondly, once you do choose a vanishing point, and a horizon line, then you've set up a system that you have to follow. If you don't know how to do that, you can end up forgetting really important concepts, resulting in wildly inaccurate drawings. I've had students that forgot that vertical walls of buildings need to be straight up and down - or the building falls over!
If I had simply asked this student to draw a building, I'm sure he'd make the vertical lines vertical, but by introducing 1-point perspective, he got completely confused. To prevent this, just ask yourself, how many buildings lean in real life? It's not too common, and it's a big deal when it happens:
How Many Vanishing Points Are There In Real Life?
Six - based on your point of view, at any given time. In most drawings, we only focus on a few at a time. The more vanishing points you add to a drawing, the more complicated it gets. However, if the buildings and objects around you aren't situated in right angles to each other, or if they're on hills and slopes, this can further skew the perspective, even adding more vanishing points.
How Do You Find a Vanishing Point in Real Life?
It's tricky, because they keep moving as you turn and tilt your head. In a photo, you can find them by using a ruler to extend converging lines.
Can Linear Perspective Perfectly Describe the Real World?
Yes... but not by itself. Linear perspective lends itself to describing an ideal world, a world that sits on a perfectly flat ground, with everything in perfect right angles to each other. The real world isn't like that. Towns aren't like that. Nature isn't like that. People like right angles and rectangles, and so we try to impose it on nature, but we rarely do anything "perfectly".
Even so, you can often find traces of linear perspective in nature. Clouds indicate them, however roughly.
Rivers and streams indicate them.
Fields can indicate them:
Looking up at trees can indicate them:
Rays of light can indicate them.
It's rarely as clear and sharp as the side of a building, but it's there if you know how to look.
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