Perspective (graphical)

Perspective (from Latin'to see through') is the representation of objects on the basis of how they may appear in real-life. Perspective is an approximate representation, generally on a flat surface, of an object as it is seen by the eye. Perspective is useful for representing a three-dimensional scene in a two-dimensional medium, like paper. It is based on the optical fact that for a person an object looks N times smaller if it has been moved N times further from the eye than the original distance was.

The most characteristic features of linear perspective are that objects appear smaller as their distance from the observer increases, and that they are subject to foreshortening, meaning that an object's dimensions parallel to the line of sight appear shorter than its dimensions perpendicular to the line of sight. All objects will recede to points in the distance, usually along the horizon line, but also above and below the horizon line depending on the view used.

Italian Renaissance painters and architects including Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca, Luca Pacioli and Leonardo da Vinci, studied linear perspective, wrote treatises on it, and incorporated it into their artworks.