Perspective 2, no skill no art
mesken
want to bring it back to some main topics.
Roughly, paintings can be separated into two categories:
- those which are projections and are thus depicting a scene:
representational art (whether abstract or not)
- those which are not projections, the painting is depicting nothing
but itself: non representational art.
All representational art needs a system of projection for something
that is 3 dimensional must be translated to the 2 dimensional space of
the painting (in sculpturing there ain't such a problem).
Almost all projection systems fall into one of the following major
categories based on primary geometry:
- orthogonal projection
- oblique, axonometric projection
- perspective projection
Although these systems all create the illusion of depth they're not
the only contributors of it. However: only in the perspective
projection things get smaller the further they're away and Deli also
very rightly called atmospheric perspective as a subset of the
perspective projection system. Ofcourse, artists can use a blend of
these systems.
Ofcourse the projection system is only a tool and in no way a central
issue in a painting, nor does mastery of this tool guarantee art. But
it is a tool which is very often used and thus very basic. Perspective
projection is the most complicated of the 3 categories but its basics
are quite easy to learn.
This is about how important it is to master this projection system and
how bad it is if an artist using it messes up big time. Thus: the no
skill, no art paradigm.
The painter typically (not Liechtenstein, no :-) is a person who both
has the idea (which is in terms of subject, composition, contrasts,
etc.) and does the execution of that idea, the rendering in which the
use of a projection system is needed if the painting is
representational (and many more tools like a firm grasp of anatomy,
shading, postures, a painter's eye, etc. for example). It is of the
utmost importance that the "tools" are used appropriately to serve the
idea, the two cannot be separated and (as John Moore argues) the
skills are typically picked up in order to give the idea shape. The
skills as result of the love of the artist for certain things.
Looking at a painting one can see how succesfully the tools were being
used to convey the idea. The mastery of the tools themselves (the
perspective being rendered rightly) and the proper application or
choice of tools (that 2 point perspective was indeed the best choice
instead of an oblique system).
If a relative simple tool as perspective projection is used by an
artist and he/she messes up big time (unintentionally) and doesn't
even care then this person cannot be called an artist according to
Deli and me (never thought it would come to this :-). The execution of
a painting, which needs to be firmly grounded in skill, needs to be
taken seriously by the painter. Failing to acquire a simple skill like
perspective projection shows the painter has no respect for his/her
own idea or customers.
For an artist is not only one who has ideas but is also one that can
render them better than other people and something like perspective
projection really is the absolute minimum recquirement, a fundamental
skill. Paintings are certainly not made into art by proper execution
of perspective but a failure in this field certainly dismisses them as
art.
John Moore
first two categories of projection:
orthogonal projection
oblique axonometric projection
What do these have to do with depth perception? Are there examples of
artists who use them?
--
John Moore
The Open Sketch Book
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnmoore100/
"mesken" <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:2nVKOAKbIBMJxtm1TGgV+=qzW...@4ax.com...
Erik A. Mattila
> I thought I understood perspective pretty well, but I've never heard of the
> first two categories of projection:
> orthogonal projection
> oblique axonometric projection
> What do these have to do with depth perception? Are there examples of
> artists who use them?
>
> --
> John Moore
> The Open Sketch Book
> http://home.earthlink.net/~johnmoore100/
I think in a very formal, academic sense you wouldn't call the other
projection methods 'perspective.' As a matter of fact, when you learn
drafting or engineering drawing 'perspective' is presented as it's own
category of projection, distinct from others such as 'oblique' or 'isometric'
etc.
You see quite a bit of oblique projection in Persian, Moghul (India) and
Japanese art. Basically, it's a method of showing more that one plane of an
object in one view, with no attention paid to convergence of lines. Draw two
squares, and move one up and two the right, and connect the three visible
corners -- voila, you have an oblique projection. If you look at some of
Hokusai's woodcuts, especially those with architectural subjects, you can see
this. It's quite nice, and certainly creates an illusion of picture space,
but seems a bit distorted since we are used to looking at perspective
drawings. It probably looked quite 'natural' to Hokusai's 18th century
audiance.
Erik Mattila
Dan Fox
>
> All artwork on a flat surface, good, bad, or indifferent, is a
> combination of the appearance of flat pattern and an illusion of
> space.
No. Much non-representational art has no illusion of space or depth
whatsoever. In a sense, the development of modern art can be seen as a
progressive flattening of the picure plane. One writer (Varnedoe of MOMA)
describes this progression as beginning approximately with Manet and ending
with Stella's black paintings.
<snip>
>
> Fine artwork reveals a lot more than perspective skills.
Thank god for that.
> The painter is a person who tries to get the viewer to like his work.
No. A commercial artist's first goal is to produce work that viewers will
like. Rockwell painted to please the Saturday Evening Post editors and
readers; Peter Max paints to please the hoi polloi. An artist paints to
please himself. If others like it that's fine.
> If you don't know your craft you can't convey your ideas (if you
> have any).
Absolutely true. But I think that Mani's background and interests are
technical, rather than artistic, hence his insistence on the superiority of
courses in engineering drawing, etc. You don't want engineering courses:
you need good art teachers who will drill you in perspective and other
skills from an artist's standpoint (by which I mean learning to do accurate
perspective freehand, rather than depending on rules, measured angles,
etc.). There are a lot of lousy art teachers out there - but there are some
very good ones, too. Students need to pick and choose.
Skill is an absolute necessity for an artist. But it is wrong to limit the
notion of skill to a very narrow group of abilities necessary to paint in
the manner of the 19th century academy.
There is another point here, though:
some of the traditional skills such as composition and color harmony are
very much needed to produce good non-representational art. They are just
not as evident to the untrained eye as they are when used to produce
traditional realism. This is why legendary modernist teacher Hans Hoffman
insisted that his students learn to draw from the model and acquire the
traditional skills before he would allow them to try non-representational
art.
--
Dan
'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.' - Blake
http://www.danfoxart.com
myfan...@my-deja.com
danf...@yahoo.com(Dan Fox) wrote:
> hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
>
> >
> > All artwork on a flat surface, good, bad, or indifferent, is a
> > combination of the appearance of flat pattern and an illusion of
> > space.
>
> No. Much non-representational art has no illusion of space or depth
> whatsoever. In a sense, the development of modern art can be seen as a
> progressive flattening of the picure plane. One writer (Varnedoe of
MOMA)
> describes this progression as beginning approximately with Manet and
ending
> with Stella's black paintings.
Doubtfull, Manet is not intent on Flatness, thats only the critics
and now curators mistake... Stella's paintings aren't any flatter
than an average persian rug design,.
+We+ have already seen the "most" minimal art, but you weren't paying
attention.
Anyway the average talked about "minimalism" art work exists as a
'Minimax' Occupying the maximum space, pricetag, and wordfull
description...
> <snip>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
myfan...@my-deja.com
mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote:
> The discussion about perspective now quickly decays into details and I
> want to bring it back to some main topics.
>
> Roughly, paintings can be separated into two categories:
> - those which are projections and are thus depicting a scene:
> representational art (whether abstract or not)
> - those which are not projections, the painting is depicting nothing
> but itself: non representational art.
>
These categories simply do not exist in reality, art is neither
itself nor a projection, it is what is what we think from it
not what we think it is...
Ciao Babes
Bryn
Bob C
>
> >
> >I think in a very formal, academic sense you wouldn't call the other
> >projection methods 'perspective.' As a matter of fact, when you learn
> >drafting or engineering drawing 'perspective' is presented as it's own
> >category of projection, distinct from others such as 'oblique' or 'isometric'
> >etc.
>
> Perspective (basically) is concerned with what sets of parallels lines
> look like when projected on a surface, (usually flat).
>
Originally, my ideas of projections come from computer graphics.
Non-oblique Perspective is your basic "as seen by the eye" projection.
Orthographic is basically an idealized case of perspective, one where
the "eye" is infinite distance from the scene being viewed. This gives
you the look of seeing something through a super-zoom lens, where
objects do not appear to get smaller as they get further away.
Axonometric and Isometric are just special cases of orthographic,
depending on the relation of the viewer to a specific object being
viewed. Oblique actually refers to the case when the projection plane is
not perpendicular to the direction of projection, something which is
almost never used, but I've also heard it used to reference any
orthographic projection which shows more than one face of a specific
object but is neither axonometric nor isometric.
Perspective in art means something very different then the perspective
projection. Perspective is a system of organizing the relationships of
objects and lines in space. Some systems may attempt a rough
approximation of true non-orthographic perspective projection, although
actually achieving that without a computer or photograph is an extremely
complicated task. Orthographic is more easily achieved, and I believe
that the projection terms orthographic, axonometric, and isometric carry
over directly as a description of perspective systems in art.
Things got much more complicated when I worked on maps. Not only do you
project the Earth onto a plane, you may also project it onto a cylinder
or cone or even more complex surfaces, and then figure out a way to
flatten the surface into a plane for display purposes. You could create
maps with very interesting properties, but none of these have any
relevance to the artist. Just thought I'd mention it, though :)
- Bob C.
mdeli
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>John Moore wrote:
>
>> I thought I understood perspective pretty well, but I've never heard of the
>> first two categories of projection:
>> orthogonal projection
>> oblique axonometric projection
>> What do these have to do with depth perception? Are there examples of
>> artists who use them?
>>
>> --
>> John Moore
>> The Open Sketch Book
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~johnmoore100/
>
>I think in a very formal, academic sense you wouldn't call the other
>projection methods 'perspective.' As a matter of fact, when you learn
>drafting or engineering drawing 'perspective' is presented as it's own
>category of projection, distinct from others such as 'oblique' or 'isometric'
>etc.
This is true. However mathematically speaking they are really one.
Perspective (basically) is concerned with what sets of parallels lines
look like when projected on a surface, (usually flat).
I guess my outlook on the matter is scientific. That Is why I
essentially consider them one. However If I were to look at it from
the point of view you describe, you are correct.
In Oblique, isometric. etc parallel sets of lines remain parallel.
Strangely these are the views from infinity.
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Tired of Modern Art? Check out my web page!
http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/
John Moore
<myfan...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:82kt8s$iqv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <2nVKOAKbIBMJxtm1TGgV+=qzW...@4ax.com>,
> mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote:
> > The discussion about perspective now quickly decays into details and I
> > want to bring it back to some main topics.
> >
> > Roughly, paintings can be separated into two categories:
> > - those which are projections and are thus depicting a scene:
> > representational art (whether abstract or not)
> > - those which are not projections, the painting is depicting nothing
> > but itself: non representational art.
> >
>
> These categories simply do not exist in reality, art is neither
> itself nor a projection, it is what is what we think from it
> not what we think it is...
from it", then you can rightfully think of it as a projection.
--
John Moore
The Open Sketch Book
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnmoore100/
>
>
mdeli
>Oblique actually refers to the case when the projection plane is
>not perpendicular to the direction of projection, something which is
>almost never used, but I've also heard it used to reference any
>orthographic projection which shows more than one face of a specific
>object but is neither axonometric nor isometric.
The plane can be at any angle. A view camera tilts the plane to an
angle usually in order to make aesthetic corrections.
>
>Perspective in art means something very different then the perspective
>projection. Perspective is a system of organizing the relationships of
>objects and lines in space.
Sounds to me like "composition not perspective.
>
>Things got much more complicated when I worked on maps. Not only do you
>project the Earth onto a plane, you may also project it onto a cylinder
>or cone or even more complex surfaces, and then figure out a way to
>flatten the surface into a plane for display purposes. You could create
>maps with very interesting properties, but none of these have any
>relevance to the artist. Just thought I'd mention it, though :)
The object can be projected on any surface at any angle. Check out the
math subject affine transformations. This will explain a lot about
distortions.