We are committed to education on all matters related to perspective and the visual dimensions of art, science, and technology. We develop perspective-related educational materials, plus associated courses, for students at all levels.
In particular, we offer three courses for students, which are at the undergraduate level, as detailed below.
Perspective from Antiquity to the 19th Century
Perspective has been described (Edgerton 1975) as the most important discovery of the West. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it involved many of the key individuals in Renaissance art and architecture, notably Brunelleschi, Alberti, and Piero della Francesca. The projection methods of perspective were linked with astronomy (astrolabes and sundials), cartography, stonecutting, and surveying. Leonardo da Vinci linked perspective with physics and made it one of the cornerstones in his new approach to science through his pyramidal law, a principle that also inspired the first universal analogue reckoning instruments: the sector and proportional compass.
Since the seventeenth century, the development of perspective has entailed some of the leading mathematicians: Desargues, Pascal, Euler, Monge, Poncelet. In its metaphorical sense, perspective has been explored by philosophers such as Leibniz and Nietzsche; played a fundamental role in the work of Schutz, one of the founding fathers of modern sociology, and has affected profoundly most disciplines, including anthropology, ethnography, psychology and theology.
This course sets out to reconsider the history of perspective. It examines optical adjustments methods among the Egyptians and the Greeks; debates concerning ancient perspective, mediaeval contributions and focusses on the period 1300-1600. Developments in Italy, Burgundy, Germany and France are explored.
A survey is made of major themes: instruments, shadow projection, regular and semi-regular solids, intarsia, interiors, quadratura, trompe l’oeil, anamorphosis, stage scenery, columns, ideal architecture, ruins and gardens. Links with mathematical themes such as planisphere projection, conic sections, sundials, and stonecutting are addressed. Developments from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century are considered. The significance of perspective is assessed in terms of science, art, the environment and the imagination, in order to draw attention to a paradox: How was it that a method of representation that imposed scientific rules became a new key to artistic freedom and creativity?
Perspective in the 20th Century
Perspective in the twentieth century has evoked fundamentally different interpretations. On the one hand, developments in abstract art led scholars such as Novotny (1939) to claim that perspective died with Cezanne. On the other hand, more books have been published on perspective in the 20th century than in any previous century. In art, perspective has remained important for surrealists, super-realists and hyper-realists. In architecture and technical drawing, perspective has become increasingly important.
The rise of computers has greatly enhanced this interest in systematic treatment of space and has led to the four C’s: computer aided design (CAD); computer aided engineering (CAE); computer aided manufacture (CAM) and computer integrated manufacture (CIM). This course explores these developments, and raises questions about their consequences.
It begins with changes in classification, examples in art, particularly spherical and alternative methods. This leads to the importance of illusions, the blind, spatial development and parallel perspective in connection with psychology. The impact of architecture and technical drawing is examined. Particular attention is given to the significance of new technologies: photography, cinema, video, computer graphics, robotics, fractals, holography, stereoscopy, space masks and virtual reality.
No technical knowledge is assumed. The concern is philosophical: what are the consequences of these new methods of spatial representation for our approaches to the world, for concepts of knowledge, for the problem of knowing ourselves?
Perspective in the 21st Century
Detailed is how the application of perspective theories/methods/instruments have profoundly shaped the modern era. Explained is how perspective introduced new ways of viewing, matching, and making representations of the physical world. Whereby perspective was employed to enhance the accuracy of architectural and engineering drawings, enable remote sensing methods, plus mapping techniques, and obtain accurate environmental views. Finally, perspective ideas have been central to creating photographic, film, and television media and thus shaped all aspects of modern culture. Overall, perspective led to a dramatically improved understanding of, and ultimately dominance of, reality.
We begin by looking at how perspective influenced the development of almost every art and design movement, from pre-history and ancient times to classical, modern, and postmodern art movements. Next, we look in detail at how perspective shaped the development of engineering and science from the earliest times in ancient thought to Renaissance and modern times. By accurately prescribing, indexing, and modelling reality; perspective enabled accurate systemised worlds to be developed on media. By means of perspective views, new kinds of visual solutions can be created in the human mind or model and subsequently be recorded on media.
The explicit dimensional worlds made possible using perspective machines/methods enable new ideas, concepts, forms and conglomerations of objects to be explored. Some objects/processes are really existent ones, and some only imaginary (at a particular time). Perspective, because it allowed the creation of imaginary 3D worlds centred on a particular viewpoint and specific operational scenarios, allowed new concepts to be developed at the speed of thought. We no longer needed to try everything out in reality. The inner world then became the master and shaper of the outer.
Demonstrated is how perspective was central to, and arguably led to, significant scientific developments and also the industrial revolution. Discussed is how perspective has been instrumental to the space race, plus the computer, telecommunications, internet revolutions, etc. Finally, we look at the historical development of technology and elucidate how perspective has shaped creative efforts, especially the invention/application of many new technologies. Examples include the photographic camera, film and cinema, television, mobile phone, satellite imaging, hypermedia, the internet, social networks, etc.
Notably, all of these different perspective-related developments have profoundly improved human knowledge, understanding, and ultimately consciousness of spacial reality, and so led to an ever-increasing ability to probe, model, control, and shape the world in which we live. Perspective provides new powers to visualise, model, and create scientific solutions to problems of unprecedented scale, scope, context, detail, and accuracy
Perspective Research Centre 
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