


From this point it is necessary to draw the so-called "visual rays" that connect the viewer's eye with the point in the distance. The vanishing point is usually located near the centre of the horizon. In this open window it is necessary to draw straight lines to represent the horizon, divide the painting with different horizontal lines and fix the vanishing point. Linear perspective is a mathematical system used to create the illusion of space and distance on a flat surface. To properly use the linear perspective a painter has to imagine the canvas as an "open window" through which he sees the subject of the painting. Although before Renaissance artists such as Giotto tried to use perspective in their paintings, it was only with the Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi, who demonstrated its principles, and the writings of Leon Battista Alberti, who wrote about the perspective and presented a perspective construction in his De Pictura in 1435, when perspective was formalized as an artistic technique. One of the distinguishing features of Renaissance art is the development of linear perspective. In addition to the renewed interest in antiquity, these included the formulation of perspective and the emphasis on architectural forms. Their objective was to create art that would respect proportions and that would closely resemble reality. Renaissance artists focused on developing new techniques and artistic methods of composition and aesthetic effect. Explore the Renaissance movement by starting from What is Renaissance? and browse our curated list of artworks from renaissance painters such as Andrea Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, Sandro Botticelli and others. Moving away from the religious atmosphere that dominated the Middle Age, Renaissance artists turned their attention to the beauty and mystery of the natural world and to the individual man, who was considered the centre of this new era. Renaissance, a French word meaning "rebirth", indicates the period that came after Medievalism and saw the humanistic revival of classical art. Renaissance is an artistic movement that developed in Italy in the 14th century and spread throughout Europe reaching its peak with the 16th century art of the Italian masters Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. Things more distant in a landscape, such as a mountain, tend to appear lighter in hue and more blue because there is more of the Earth's atmosphere between that far away element and the viewer.Īs viewers, we tend to see a composition in the following way: elements towards the top of the composition are more likely to be background elements, and things along the bottom of the composition tend to be seen as in the foreground."Beauty is produced by the pleasing appearance and good taste of the whole, and by the dimensions of all the parts being duly proportioned to each other." Landscapes, for instance, are an interesting study. This is not always the easiest thing to envision before you start a piece, but color can definitely play a role in creating depth. Blur the edges of anything that you want to appear out of focus, and sharpen the edges of the in-focus elements of your composition. Elements that are in focus tend to appear closer in the foreground, and elements that are fuzzy and unfocused seem to appear further in the background. The focus of your art can mean the same thing that it does in photography: it can mean the part of your artwork that is sharp and easily read by the viewer. If you know certain elements will be more forward or more backward in the depth of your work, plan to layer them over or under other elements to enhance the feel of dimension. Here is another simple concept that is often overlooked, and does take planning in advance when you are composing an artwork with depth. Any line in the composition that is defining the side of a three dimensional element should converge on this same point, thus creating the effect of depth. You can create linear perspective by setting your horizon line across the composition, and placing a vanishing point along that line. This ties in with the diminishing scale technique, but is a bit more precise. Make sure that you keep this core principle in mind when you are planning your next work. The simple principle at work with diminishing scale is this: things that are larger in the work appear closer to the viewer, and things that are smaller appear farther away. The easiest way to depict depth in a two dimensional artwork is with diminishing scale.
