Have you ever wondered how artists create a convincing illusion of depth in their paintings and drawings? You might think it's because of their outstanding talent, but you would only be partly right. Early in the 15th century, artists developed special visual techniques that helped them make a flat surface appear to have depth. Let's explore how they do it and learn the connection between art and vision science.
- Increase Your Eye Q
- Size Scaling
- Overlapping
- Atmospheric Perspective
- Linear Perspective
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Increase Your Eye Q
Vision is a complex sense. The eyes are the entry to a multilayered visual system that processes millions of bits of information every second. In fact, seventy percent of the body’s sense receptors are found in the eyes.
Humans see the world with two eyes. This is called binocular vision. However, since our eyes are about two inches apart, each eye sees a slightly different view. Our brain combines the views together forming a 3-D picture. Let’s take a closer look.
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Size Scaling
When you look at a scene in a painting or in the world around you, you'll notice that nearby objects look bigger than objects that are farther away. For example, in a parking lot the car you're standing next to will appear bigger than a similar car across the way. If the cars are basically the same size normally, what’s going on?
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Overlapping
Overlapping is a technique used by artists to tell us where an object is in relation to other objects. How does that work? Let’s take a closer look.
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Atmospheric Perspective
When you view something in the far distance like a mountain or building, the atmosphere – a mixture of dust and moisture in the air – changes how it looks. Up close they look clear and crisp, but from far away they are less distinct. How can we use that to create depth?
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Linear Perspective
Linear perspective uses simple lines to make you believe your seeing something in 3-D. How does that work? Let’s take a closer look.
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