Drawing and form

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One, two and three point perspective

Lesson 13 of 14 in Drawing and form.

When to Use 1,2 or 3 Point Perspective How to Know · Stephen Travers Art
Lesson

Linear perspective en.wikipedia.org is a construction, not a discovery about how eyes work, and it has a date. Filippo Brunelleschi en.wikipedia.org demonstrated it in Florence around 1413 with a painted panel and a mirror, and Leon Battista Alberti en.wikipedia.org wrote the method down in De pictura en.wikipedia.org in 1435. The rule is that parallel lines receding from the viewer appear to meet at a point on the horizon, and the horizon sits at the viewer's eye level.

vpvptwo faces receding · one point each
Two-point perspective with edges converging on the horizon.
Three panels of a figure viewing a tall box from the front, from a corner and from the ground, each beside a sketch with dotted lines running to one, two or three dots.
The same box seen from straight on, from its corner and from lying underneath. How many vanishing points you get depends only on where you stand.
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  1. Question 1, locked

    When do you need two-point perspective rather than one?

    • When you can see two faces of the object receding
    • When the object is far away
    • When the object is above eye level
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Where a set of parallel lines appears to converge. One set, one point.”

    • Vanishing point
    • First and third angle
    • Three-point
    • Reflected light
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Eye level. Everything above it is above your eye; everything below is below it. This is the decision that sets the whole drawing.”

    • Still life
    • Quantity before quality
    • Horizon line
    • Dead line

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