The Renaissance Perspective

"One never finishes learning about art. There are always new things to discover."

Ernst Gombrich

These studies are intended for those who feel that the current theories do not adequately explain how the old masters created the three-dimensional space in the work of art. Although art is now studied and analyzed more than in any other period of the history, we, at the same time, seem to have more difficulty in understanding the process of the spatial construction. The attempts to discover some common principle of the Renaissance perspective begin and end with the principles of linear perspective. The linear perspective does not entirely explain how the old masters proceeded within the confined area of the two-dimensional canvas or the wall.

The art historian M. Kemp in The Science of Art, one of the few serious studies of the subject, says "a tiled floor in perspective can be achieved in any number of ways. There is a problem of knowing where to start and when to stop in reconstructing the geometrical anatomy of a particular perspective scheme." He also states that a problem is in the geometrical nature of the perspective construction and that it can provide the basis for almost infinite series of auxiliary construction of great complexity. Kemp

How the old masters created their masterpieces, when linear perspective has such a fundamental shortcomings, has been puzzling my mind for many years, yet, I admit, it was the book of the contemporary pop artist D. Hockney and his tracing theory that started me up with an urge of a constant and concentrated research. It was clear to me from the beginning that this theory is flawed; his approach was methodically incoherent and self-contradictory. Fortunately today most of the art or optics scholars reject the theory. Nevertheless so far there has been laid no clear, direct punch to put this theory to the sleep.  

Failures to decipher the secret perspective system led to many incorrect modern theories. A substantial amount of recent work further consolidates an erroneous camera obscura/lucida theory and many of the old masters are today unjustly labeled by using these optical devices. The painters like Raphael, Veronese, Velasquez, Vermeer, to name just a few, left in their paintings important clues which have remained unnoticed until today. It is evident that the most consistent perspective masters did not describe theoretical concepts and did not leave any auxiliary geometric constructions. Thanks to this know-how, these artists were often employed by the kings or the popes. The system of the Renaissance perspective was kept secret.  

Therefore I proceeded on the assumption that this method of perspective representation had never been published and was looking for direct evidence, not in the writings of the old masters or in the historical annals, but in the pictures alone. In the limited scope of this website I will reveal the existence the secret perspective system based on the sacred geometry and explain how the old masters had used it. This perspective is no longer accidental, but becomes mathematically accurate. The Golden mean ratio plays a major part in the design of the system.