Architectural perspective includes architectural drawing or a drawing of the built environment, serving as a design/manufacturing plan, or else as a realistic perspective view of the same. But architectural perspective also includes aspects of the design of the buildings, and in terms of how they will appear when viewed by observers in the spatial environment.
Common Themes
Perspective books, treatises and artworks have incorportad a range of archteciural themes.
- Buildings (ancient and modern): Representation/design/construction of buildings, roads, paths, panoramas, etc., that exhibit well-defined vanishing points, pleasant outlines/horizons, etc., and that also blend with the natural/built environments, and with ’pleasing’ or natural/simulated perspective views leading to open/closed perspective views as required.
- Columns: The five orders of columns were probably the most popular architectural theme in the perspective treatises of the 15th-16th centuries, which continued to the 19th century.
- Fountains: Representation/construction of fountains that exhibit ‘pleasing’ or natural/simulated perspective views or images/representations.
- Churches: Representation/construction of churches (interior/exterior) that exhibit ‘pleasing’ perspective views or images/representations.
- Gardens: Representation/construction of gardens that exhibit ‘pleasing’ or natural/simulated perspective views or images/representations.
- Phantasy Environments: Linear Perspective (and related methods) has been used to create remarkable large-scale and panoramic images and/or imaginary environments, including imaginary views of fountains, gardens, churches, monumental buildings, cities, and the interiors of churches.
Columns
Starting with Piero della Francesca (c. 1484), columns also became a topic in treatises on perspective. Following the rules of Vitruvius and Alberti, Piero was concerned specifically with a Roman Corinthian column, which he illustrated with four diagrams of bases and three of capitals. Francesco di Giorgio Martini, in his Codex Saluzziano, which also dealt with perspective, included a number of drawings of columns and bases.
In addition to these specialized treatises, columns featured regularly as a theme in perspective treatises. For instance, Jean Cousin (1560) provided full-page illustrations with a geometrical and a perspectival ground plan as well as combined perspectival views for each of the five orders. Barbaro (1568), who preferred to illustrate elements such as bases, capitals and architraves individually, devoted 21 diagrams to the subject. Fascination with the perspectival effects of columns continued throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.