Old Perspective and New Vision

The author discusses first the evolution of the technique of perspective in painting since its formal expression during the Renaissance. Taking as an example the painting of the ‘Dead Christ’ by Mantegna, he shows the differences between the actual perception of a real scene and that of the image obtained through the projective perspective technique.

In the next section, it is demonstrated that, although ‘projective’ and ‘metric’ geometries do not belong to the same basic axioms, they can both be included in an Einsteinian description of space.

In the last section, the author analyses the process and physiology of visual identification. He states that the recognition of objects and scenes is dependent on previous experiences of the viewer. He emphasizes the part of photography, television and cinema in the visual experience of today’s public. He concludes that, perspective being the image of a volume on a plane, any conventional correspondence is acceptable providing it matches the viewer’s visual education.