Dominated as we are by graphic vistas in perspective, we hardly remember the philosophers’ arguments against this “perspective” way of seeing the wor… - Daniel J. Boorstin

" "

Dominated as we are by graphic vistas in perspective, we hardly remember the philosophers’ arguments against this “perspective” way of seeing the world. Plato, who had his own way of looking at everything, objected to the very same “deception” of the senses that Vitruvius had praised as a way of giving a “faithful representation of the appearance of buildings in painted scenery.” If two objects or two persons were really the same size, Plato argued, the honest artist should make them so in his picture, and not depict one smaller than the other simply because it was seen at a greater distance.