In his book, “Drawing what the eye sees”, Ted dismisses renaissance perspective. Here are some arguments in favor of Leonardo Da Vinci.
I.
Ted: “Although Renaissance perspective is a practical solution to an artistic problem, it is not necessarily an exact representation of how the eye perceives the recession of forms.”
Leonardo: Since you are an artist too, and you are addressing to your readers from the point of view of practical, artistic matters, and you are accepting, that for artistic purposes, Renaissance perspective is a solution, are you not refuting your own stance? Most of the readers of the book are in fact, concerned with artistic results. And since you yourself refuse to work from photos, are you too, not relying on the artistic?
The solution of Renaissance perspective ventures to visualize beyond the deficiencies of a human eye, the deficiencies that arise due to its biological structure, limited focal length, and so on, these optical handicaps. Since we are able to see an object clearly in Math, the same object that would seem to be too indistinct to the human eye, the logic follows that if something that appears to the eye can be seen beyond with Math, and that which is constructed by Math, can be in fact realized by the eye and verified, when there is distinctness of vision, to an accuracy that would suffice an artist’s endeavour (excluding quantum physics, for example, or the emotions that delude the optical experience, which was Ted’s main meditative practice.) Why should there be a problem then, in departing from the optical, constructing in logic, and arriving at the optical? Surely, the viewers of the art cannot make of this exercise because the viewing experience of a painting is not in real-time, like performance arts. There is no known agreement that logic and art are mutually exclusive, your own envelope and block-in technique already relies on the use of lines, which are purely mental conceptions.
II
Ted: “In the simplest principle, Renaissance perspective is based upon the supposed convergence of parallel straight lines on an imaginary point on the horizon directly opposite the eye. I have never determined whether that point is meant to represent a place midway between the two eyes ( and is therefore not a point on or of the origin of sight) or whether it is two points representing the two pupils.”
Leonardo: Renaissance perspective is based on one-eyed vision, and this is not necessarily a handicap, because perspective is logical and not purely optical. In binocular vision, we see an image with one eye, and we see another image with the second eye. Binocular vision helps with depth-perception when these two images are combined by the brain. Humans have two eyes in front that aid depth perception, whlie frogs, deer and such creatures have eyes on the sides to increase range of sight by sacrificing depth perception. (Firstly, why is this a problem if your own medium is two dimensional?)
The binocular image is not very different from the two individual images, as though one would see a tiger with one eye and the same tiger would appear to be a snake with the other.
You will see this when you look with a single eye and you open the second eye, you begin to see more like the second eye’s image. If you do the same with the order reversed, you begin to see more like the other eye. This means that we are capable of processing one eyed vision and we have evidence of people and even artists who have lost one eye and of those who are born with unaligned eyes, to have been successful at art.
Ted: “If there is one point for binocular vision, it is certainly imaginary and unnatural.”
Leonardo: There is no one point for binocular vision as the image is formed logically by the brain by merging the two images of the two eyes, not optically by the eyes, within themselves. Also, as discussed just before, logic and arts are not known to be mutually exclusive and you yourself do use linear conceptions in your process, which is based on logic. Do you mean to call logic to be unnatural? This is a philosophical question.
III.
Ted: “The insidious contitioning of conventional perspective, imagine a straight edged wall running across our line of sight for a great distance to the right and left. Without bothering to introduce the questions about the curvature of Earth’s surface, we would expect according to conventional perspective that the wall would slant away in straight lines toward points off to each side. But what ought to happen in the middle?”
Leonardo: What happens in the middle depends upon whether the problem is of one-point or two-point perspective, if the wall is such that its corner faces us somewhat, it would be two-point, and if the wall is as you say, parallel to us, then it is one-point perspective. Of course, the lens of the human eye is bound to curve straight objects and straighten some curved objects, but the logic of perspective does not look through the lens. But when the eye looks at perspective, the brain does find some logical sense in the diminution of magnitude, and that of color. Just as light that you regard to be a mathematically perfect phenomenon, Mathematical perspective could also be regarded as a sister of this same study of nature.
(Without light, nothing could be seen, and without Mathematical perspective, we would simply live in crooked houses and drive on roads that are not the shortest routes, and so on. Here, light is surely more important than perspective. But what if a blade of Ted’s aeroplane engine were to be slightly crooked?)
Ted:
Leonardo: The difference between the optical and the logical effects of perspective when realized are not as exaggerated as you may think. If you were to walk along the street and observe the terraces of the buildings, they would not seem so curved as your diagram shows, and if one were to carry a gridded mesh with them on their walk and hold it against the angle of the terrace in parallel, one would not see such a prominent curve as shown in your diagram. In this case, your stance may be more symbolic than ours.
Ted: True, but anomalies may exist.
Leonardo: Yes, things must be studied. Learning is better than non-learning, as we both have commonly said in both of our times.
Usually when we focus on something with our eyes, the thing is located well within our field of vision, but even straight objects do look curved at the corners of our field of vision. This need not necessarily be represented in 2-D art.
Conclusion: Because there is no one to debate on Leonardo’s side and Ted’s book is an open ground for Ted, we must not simply accept Ted’s conclusion as the final verdict. It is worthwhile to study perspective, and to pursue design, architecture and so on, even as a fine artist! Ted is not completely rejecting the idea of such studies!
