The Psychology of Perspective and Renaissance Art

Book excerpt: Michael Kubovy, an experimental psychologist, recounts the lively history of the invention of perspective in the fifteenth century, and shows how, as soon as the invention spread, it was used to achieve subtle and fascinating aesthetic effects. A clear presentation of the fundamental concepts of perspective and the reasons for its effectiveness, drawing on the latest laboratory research on how people perceive, leads into the development of a new theory to explain why Renaissance artists such as Leonardo and Mantegna used perspective in unorthodox ways which have puzzled art scholars. This theory illuminates the author's broader consideration of the evolution of art: the book proposes a resolution of the debate between those who believe that the invention/discovery of perspective is a stage in the steady progress of art and those who believe that perspective is merely a conventional and arbitrary system for the representation of space.