12 / 198
11
There are also quite elaborate optical machines in which some kind of sighting device is angled towards
a given point or contour on an object, while a mark-making component moves across what is to be the
picture plane registering the optical location of the point or contour*
15
. Dürer was the earliest master
of such things.*
16
Such “perspectographs” were indeed made and some examples have survived from
later periods. But they seem generally to be more in the nature of prestigious devices for demonstration
purposes rather than serving the utilitarian needs of practicing painters.
The making of such fine technical instruments became a matter of pride from the 16
th
century onwards.
We also find some illustrations of the camera obscura, the “dark chamber” with an aperture in one
of its sides that served to create an inverted image of what lay illuminated outside the “camera” (with
or without the assistance of a lens).*
17
The “camera” features somewhat less frequently than we might
expect, given its likely use by Dutch and Dutch-influenced artists from the 17
th
century onwards. Most
authors are concerned with geometrical rectitude than the direct transcription of raw nature.
Our archetypal book may well conclude with worked examples closer to the desired paintings of
subjects that were current at the time and place of the publication. The Italians and Dutch stand
at the opposite end of the scales. Italian 16
th
century and Baroque treatises are likely to emphasise
grand architectural constructions in an all’antica manner and heroic figures, especially as projected
illusionistically on to ceilings, vaults and domes. Such architectural projections are represented most
spectacularly by Pozzo.*
18
The Dutch, unsurprisingly, follow a more empirical bent with constructions
of domestic rooms containing clearly scaled furniture and inhabitants*
19
, urban views, lofty church
interiors, and landscapes with perspectival motifs such as rows of trees and artfully placed boats on
calm waters.
The Vroom collection allows us to chart the diffusion of the perspective book, from its origins
in Italy, closely followed by France, where the earliest illustrated treatise was published in 1505,
the eccentric and pioneering treatise by Jean Pelerin (Viator).*
20
Germany, an important cradle
of northern humanism, followed with the supremely important Instruction in Measurement... by
Dürer in 1525.*
21
Thereafter we witness the spread to Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and eventually
to 18
th
century Britain, where the belated perspectivists associated themselves with the international
prestige of Newton. While many of the treatises were published in the vernacular, Latin continued to
be used on an international basis. Dürer’s book, translated into Latin by Camerarius in 1532, served
to bring the artist’s vernacular geometry into scholarly circulation.*
22
*
15
58, 95, 119, 141, 256, 320, 372
*
16
112-118
*
17
200, 318
*
18
19, 242, 293, 297
*
19
177
*
20
26-27
*
21
112-118
*
22
115