376 PERSPECTIVE. 



glaring blunders, and render their study of drawing 

 much more pleasant and easy, is so far from being 

 difficult, that it is astonishing any one should hesi- 

 tate a moment about acquiring it. 



Some part of the blame may, however, be fairly 

 laid to the want of a treatise on perspective, of 

 an easy and popular kind, such as might suit those 

 who have had no opportunities of acquiring a 

 knowledge of geometry. It would be in vain to 

 endeavour to supply this deficiency properly in a 

 work of so limited a nature, and which embraces 

 so many subjects as the present ; yet though our 

 plan will not permit us to treat of it so fully as it 

 deserves, we shall lay down, as concisely as pos- 

 sible, a few of its principal rules, the understand- 

 ing of which will be found useful to beginners in 

 the art of drawing. 



Explanation of the principal Terms used in 

 Perspective. 



The perspective plane is the surface of the pic- 

 ture itselfi which may be imagined to be a plane of 

 glass placed upright between the spectator and 

 the objects to be drawn. Then, if lines or rays be 

 supposed to come from every part of the objects to 

 the spectator's eye, when viewing them through 

 the glass, they would cut the plane in certain 

 points ; and if these points were connected by 

 lines, they would give the perspective represent- 

 ation. It is upon this simple idea that all the 

 rules of perspective are founded : they are so 

 many methods of finding out the above-mentioned 

 points; and when the light, shadow, and colour, 

 are added, the whole constitutes a picture exactly 

 resembling the original. 



