Olivia+Cuacuas

Olivia Minutti Renaissance Art Techniques; Linear Perspective

Many art techniques were introduced during the Renaissance(1400). One specific technique that was introduced during this time period was linear perspective. Linear perspective was a technique used to translate 2D paintings into 23D surface of painting, which was called "picture plane." The purpose of 2D was to bring out the concept of converging lines to a single vanishing point, in the viewers eye (horizontal line).

Linear perspective had already been introduced by ancient Greeks and Romans, but Filippo Brunelleschi rediscovered and made some changes to it. Filippo Brunelleschi adjusted a single vanishing point to a canvas(piece of cloth) and there he discovered a technique to determine depth. In order for Brunelleschi technique to work he tested it, he painted a panel of the Florence Baptistry using mirrors, to determine the scale of the objects in the painting to make it emerge more concrete. Brunelleschi technique was successful and influenced many other artist. His first linear perspective studies no longer exist but he still made a great impact in the Renaissance art.

Linear perspective contributed to the further growth of the Renaissance because it related more to the person looking at the painting. In the middle ages the paintings were more about religion, of God and heaven. Before the paintings of God and religious Saints were drawn according to how people imagined them, and to church teachings. When the Renaissance started paintings were no longer about religion they were based on realism, and people everyday lives.

During the Renaissance humanism was one of the factors of why the art technique linear perspective was created. It only focused on the individuals point of view. "perspective fits within Renaissance Humanism because "it structured all images of reality to address a single spectator who, unlike God, could only be in one place at a time." In other words, linear perspective eliminates the multiple viewpoints that we see in medieval art, and creates an illusion of space from a single, fixed viewpoint. This suggests a renewed focus on the individual viewer, and we know that individualism is an important part of the Humanism of the Renaissance." - http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/Brunelleschi.html