What is linear perspective? How it works and how to find it

Linear perspective is a way of rendering depth on a flat surface. Lines that are parallel in reality and run into the space are drawn so that they meet at a vanishing point on the horizon line, at the viewer's eye level. The method was developed in Florence in the early 15th century and became the foundation of Renaissance painting.

Facts

Developed: Florence, c. 1415–1435
Pioneers: Filippo Brunelleschi (the experiments) and Leon Battista Alberti (the theory, 1435)
Early example: Masaccio's fresco The Holy Trinity, c. 1425–1427
Key concepts: Horizon line, vanishing point, foreshortening
Other perspectives: Aerial perspective, hierarchical perspective, parallel perspective

How it works

Imagine standing in the middle of a long, straight street. The kerbs, the eaves and the rows of windows run parallel, but to the eye they seem to draw together towards a point far away. That is the vanishing point. It always lies on the horizon line, which is at the height of your eyes.

In linear perspective all lines that run straight into the space converge on a single vanishing point, often in the middle of the picture. Objects become smaller the further away they are, according to a regular scale. A floor of square tiles becomes a grid of ever narrower trapeziums, one of the clearest ways of showing perspective.

The invention in Florence

Early in the 15th century the architect Filippo Brunelleschi carried out a famous experiment: he painted the Baptistery in Florence on a small panel and let the viewer look through a hole in the panel at its reflection in a mirror. The picture matched the real building exactly. In 1435 Leon Battista Alberti described how to construct perspective in his book on painting.

Masaccio was among the first to use the method on a large scale. In the fresco The Holy Trinity in the church of Santa Maria Novella, painted around 1425–1427, a barrel-vaulted chapel seems to open up in the wall. Later Piero della Francesca wrote his own textbook on perspective.

The masterpieces

In The Last Supper Leonardo da Vinci lets all the ceiling beams and walls lead the eye to the head of Christ, who sits in front of a bright window in the middle of the picture. Perspective becomes a way of showing who matters most. In The School of Athens Raphael places the vanishing point between Plato and Aristotle.

Andrea Mantegna pushed the technique to the extreme in his picture of the dead Christ seen from the feet, where the body is sharply foreshortened. Foreshortening is perspective applied to individual bodies and objects. Learn more about the technique on the page Looking at art: perspective.

Other ways of showing depth

Linear perspective is not the only way. Aerial perspective means that what lies far away becomes paler, bluer and hazier, as it does in reality when air lies in between. Leonardo used it in the background of the Mona Lisa. North of the Alps Jan van Eyck worked more by eye: in The Arnolfini Portrait the lines do not meet at a single point, yet the room still feels deep.

In the Middle Ages hierarchical perspective was often used, in which the most important people are largest regardless of where they stand. In Japanese and Chinese pictures parallel lines often stay parallel in the picture too, and depth is shown with layers and empty space, as in Hokusai's The Great Wave.

How to find the vanishing point

Look for straight lines that run into the picture: floor tiles, ceiling beams, table edges, window frames or house fronts. Follow two or three of them with your eye, or with a ruler on a reproduction, until they meet. That is where the vanishing point lies, and a horizontal line through it is the horizon.

Then ask yourself what is there. The artist has often placed the picture's most important figure or event at the vanishing point. Compare also with Cubism, which deliberately broke up linear perspective in order to show a subject from several sides at once.

How to recognise linear perspective

Straight lines running into the picture meet at one point
The vanishing point lies on a horizontal horizon line at eye level
Tiled floors form a grid that narrows into the distance
Objects and figures shrink evenly with distance
The picture's most important figure often stands at the vanishing point
Architecture in the picture, such as vaults and colonnades, reinforces the depth

Exercise

Where is the vanishing point in linear perspective?

Always at the bottom edge of the picture
On the horizon line, at the viewer's eye level
Outside the picture, directly above the subject