PERSPECTIVE. 
most ; flowers yellow. Natives of the islaniis 
in the Southern Ocean. 
PERSPECTIVE is the foundation of all 
the polite or liberal arts that have their basis 
in drawing ; though colouring, taken ab- 
stractedly, does not come within its rules, 
yet the painter as well as the sculptor and 
architect cannot but derive essential advan- 
tages from a knowledge of perspective ; it 
is indeed difficult to conceive how a person 
who has not either been instructed in, or 
been gifted by nature with some idea of the 
effects produced by locality and distance, 
can form any thing like a correct opinion of 
the merits of those imitations of nature 
which come tinder the heads of portrait, 
landscape, figure, or architectural drawing. 
Perspective is, in brief, the art of repre- 
senting, upon a plane surface, the appear- 
ance of objects, however diversified, simitar 
to that they assume upon a glass-plane in- 
terposed between them, and the eye at a 
given distance. The representation of a 
solid object on a plane surface can shew the 
original in no other point of view but that 
from which it is at the time beheld by the 
draughtsman ; the least change in any of the 
parts requires a change in the whole ; un- 
less in fancy drawings where a fac-simile is 
not required. Nor can any deviation from 
the several lines, which will be hereafter 
explained, and on which the truth and cor- 
rectness of representation depend, be al- 
lowed without changing the bearings, di- 
rections, and tendency of all the perspec- 
tive lines which constitute the basis of that 
faithful and converging series which unite 
all the component parts in the most pleasing 
and harmonious concinnity. 
By perspective we are taught to delineate 
objects on a plane, upon geometrical princir 
pies, and in exact ratio with their several 
magnitudes, governed by their distance. 
But it is not in the power of art to represent 
any single figure, (exact as it appears in na- 
turejj on a plane, except it be a circle ; and 
then the point of sight, or direct position of 
the eye, must be perfectly centrical, The 
reasons for this are obvious ; every object 
which recedes fiom the eye, (such as a row 
of houses in an oblique direction), inevitably 
requires that its more remote parts should 
be represented as being of less magnitude 
than those more in front, that is, nearer to 
the spectator. Now, although it is consi- 
dered an axiom in perspective that all ob- 
jects standing parallel to the base line, or 
bottom of the picture, should be represent- 
ed as preserving in every instance the real 
proportions of the scale from which theit 
parts were taken ; yet when we analyze the 
object, according to the various angles those 
several parts make with the eye, we shall 
find that even such full pointing figures re- 
quire their more remote parts to be re- 
duced in proportion as they become more 
distant from the centre, or point of sight. 
But it will be obvious, that where the ob- 
ject is very remote, there must be the less 
necessity for such scrupulous attention ; 
therefore when we draw an extensive man- 
sion, full fronting, at a great distance, we 
describe all the horizontal lines in the 
building, by horizontal lines in the drawing; 
so long as tliey come under an angle of 60 
degrees ; which is the natural range of 
sight, and beyond which no picture should 
ever extend ; when beyond that angle, we 
cannot take the whole picture at one view ; 
but must treat it as a panorama, and view 
the several parts abstractedly. When a 
building is so near as to occasion turning our 
heads round for the purpose of seeing its se- 
veral parts, they have the same effect, and 
compel us to have recourse to various 
vanishing points in which we seek the 
termination of those lines that converge, 
and in fact divide the building, though full 
fronted and uniform, into several parts ; 
each of which seems to assume a distinct 
character, and to demand separate consi- 
deration. This will be more fully under- 
stood when we treat of the general rules 
which govern perspective. The reader 
must recollect, that, as it would be impos- 
sible to represent more than one view of the 
object, in one plane, or picture, so there 
can be but one point of sight ; that is, but 
one particular spot, where the eye of the 
spectator is supposed to be fixed ; from 
which, as from a very minute point, all the 
figures represented must appear as under 
one general system. The same attention 
must of course be paid to shadows ; for we 
cannot suppose the dark side of a house to 
result from any thing but the light being in 
such a quarter as does not allow it to strike 
on that side ; consequently we attribute 
the bright side of the same object to its 
being illuminated by the rays which act pe- 
remptorily upon it. Speaking of common 
effects, we consider the light to be solitary ; 
such as the Sun, or the Moon, or one candle, 
&c. ; hence we perceive both the necessity, 
and the reason, for exhibiting all objects as 
bright, which are rvithin the range of, or 
shew themselves openly to, the light, and all 
parts to which its rays cannot reach direct, 
