PICTORIAL
COMPOSITION
THE PERFECT PERSPECTIVE
Some artists have enjoyed playing with the rules or with the rigorous technique of perspective by proposing an unusual or playful vision.
Leonardo DeVinci
In a notebook of Leonardo da Vinci, the "Codex Atlaticus" dating from 1485, the portrait of a young child and an eye are drawn in anamorphosis so that they must be looked at from the right by tilting the surface of the paper. The drawing then resumes a "normal" form.
This technique is an aberration of the perspective technique that one can observe oneself on summer evenings when the shadow cast of our silhouette lengthens disproportionately on the ground.
Leonardo da Vinci - Anamorphic Drawings - 1485 - Codex Atlanticus -
Hans HOLBEIN the young
Hans HOLBEIN Le Jeune is known for this enigmatic double portrait entitled "the ambassadors" which shows an anamorphic image. When we move to the left of the painting, the image of a human skull is revealed.
HOLBEIN Le Jeune - The Ambassadors - 1533 - National Galerie, London
The skull seen from the left side of the painting.
M.C. ESCHER
It would be regrettable not to mention an artist who deliberately played with the illusion that linear perspective can offer. From this representation of this technique it is possible to create graphics aberrations that play with our visual perceptions.
The master in the subject is undoubtedly Cornelis ESCHER, a Dutch wood engraver with unparalleled style and humor.
MC ESCHER - Relativity - 1953
MC ESCHER - The waterfall - 1953
