Perspective - ACE354.3

Commentary explains that true perspective wasn’t employed in painting until the 15th century. Paintings from the early period. Florence where, in 1412, during the Renaissance, a more systematic approach to the representation of space was invented. The Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistry of Saint John). Reconstruction of the studio of Filippo Brunelleschi who produced a mathematical formula for the reproduction of true perspective. He used the Baptistry as his model for a painting made on a mirror, and was able to switch back and forth between his mirror painting and a view of the building. Ben Johnson photographing Masaccio’s fresco of the Holy Trinity with the Virgin, St John and Two Donors (La Trinità, 1425-1428), painted according to Brunelleschi’s principles. The vanishing point is at the viewer’s eye level. Paintings demonstrating perspective. Johnson with an assistant, checking colours for his library painting. Working on the Hong Kong Panorama which required more than 500 colours. Johnson talks about using warmer colours in the foreground and blue-grey tones for the misty distance. Spraying the San Marco library picture and removing the masking tape strips; the perspective comes from the precision of the technical drawing. Johnson counters criticism that his methods constitute "cheating".