Comparing Perspective in Drawings, Photographs, and Perception
In: Art & PerceptionSearch for other papers by Aaron Hertzmann in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
In this paper, I compare perspective in my observational drawings to photographs that I took at the same time, and, where memory allows, discuss how both relate to the visual experiences. This comparison reveals several consistent trends, including systematic size differences for distant objects, differences in foreshortening, a dependence of object shape on canvas shape, and multiperspective composition. Many of these trends can be found in historical artworks as well. Some have been previously identified in the literature, but discussions often involve very incomplete information, for example, analysis of Renaissance perspective has involved considerable speculation about the artists’ subjects and thought processes, and unfounded assumptions about the “correctness” of linear perspective. In general, if a painting and a photograph of a scene differ in some aspect, it might be that the drawing does not match visual experience of that aspect, that the photograph does not, or both. Identifying such systematic differences offers avenues for future study of how pictures and visual experience relate, and what causes these differences.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Agarwala, A., Agrawala, M., Cohen, M., Salesin, D. and Szeliski, R. (2006). Photographing long scenes with multi-viewpoint panoramas, ACM Trans. Graphics (TOG) 25, 853–861. doi: 10.1145/1141911.1141966.
-
Agrawala, M., Zorin, D. and Munzner, T. (2000). Artistic multiprojection rendering, EGSR 2000: Eurographics Workshop on Rendering Techniques, Brno, Czech Republic, pp. 125–136. doi: 10.1007/978-3-7091-6303-0_12.
-
Aubry, M., Russell, B. C. and Sivic, J. (2014). Painting-to-3D model alignment via discriminative visual elements, ACM Trans. Graphics (TOG) 33, 14. doi: 10.1145/259100.
-
Bainbridge, W. A., Hall, E. H. and Baker, C. I. (2019). Drawings of real-world scenes during free recall reveal detailed object and spatial information in memory, Nat. Commun. 10, 5. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07830-6.
-
Baldwin, J., Burleigh, A. and Pepperell, R. (2014). Comparing artistic and geometrical perspective depictions of space in the visual field, Iperception 5, 536–547. 536–547. doi: 10.1068/i0668.
-
Brooker, C., Caudell, B., Hazeley, J., Morris, J., Goldstone, E. and Odewale, M. (2022). Cunk on earth, episode 3: The renaissance will not be televised. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ETwSpV4ycgU.
-
Burleigh, A., Pepperell, R. and Ruta, N. (2018). Natural perspective: mapping visual space with art and science, Vision 2, 21. doi: 10.3390/vision2020021.
-
Carroll, R., Agrawala, M. and Agarwala, A. (2009). Optimizing content-preserving projections for wide-angle images, ACM Trans. Graphics (TOG) 28, 43. doi: 10.1145/1531326.1531349.
-
Carson, L., Siva, P. and Danckert, J. (2021). Drawing portraits and still lifes from 2D and 3D sources, Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts 15, 746–757.
-
Chamberlain, R. and Pepperell, R. (2021). Slow looking at slow art: The work of Pierre Bonnard, Leonardo 54, 615–618. doi: 10.1162/leon_a_02054.
-
Cohen, D. J. (2005). Look little, look often: the influence of gaze frequency on drawing accuracy, Percept. Psychophys. 67, 997–1009. doi: 10.3758/BF03193626.
-
Cohen, D. J. and Jones, H. E. (2008). How shape constancy relates to drawing accuracy, Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts 2, 8–19. doi: 10.1037/1931–3896.2.1.8.
-
Cole, F., Sanik, K., DeCarlo, D., Finkelstein, A., Funkhouser, T., Rusinkiewicz, S. and Singh, M. (2009). How well do line drawings depict shape? SIGGRAPH ’09: ACM SIGGRAPH 2009 Papers, art. 28. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. doi: 10.1145/1576246.1531334.
-
Cooper, E. A., Piazza, E. A. and Banks, M. S. (2012). The perceptual basis of common photographic practice, J. Vis. 12, 8. doi: 10.1167/12.5.8.
-
Erkelens, C. J. (2018). Multiple photographs of a perspective scene reveal the principles of picture perception, Vision 2, 26. doi: 10.3390/vision2030026.
-
Firestone, C. (2013). On the origin and status of the “El Greco fallacy”, Perception 42, 672–674. doi: 10.1068/p7488.
-
Fried, O., Shechtman, E., Goldman, D. B. and Finkelstein, A. (2015). Finding distractors in images, in: Proc. IEEE Conf. Comput. Vis. Pattern Recogn. (CVPR), Boston, MA, USA, pp. 1703–1712.
-
Gayford, M., Kemp, M. and Munro, J. (Eds) (2022). Hockney’s Eye: The Art and Technology of Depiction. Paul Holberton Publishing, London, United Kingdom.
-
Hammad, S., Kennedy, J. M., Juricevic, I. and Rajani, S. (2008). Ellipses on the surface of a picture, Perception 37, 504–510. doi: 10.1068/p5840.
-
Hertzmann, A. (2022a). Toward modeling creative processes for algorithmic painting, in: Proc. 13th Int. Conf. Comput. Creat. ICCC’22, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, pp. 180–189. Available at: https://computationalcreativity.net/iccc22/proceedings/.
-
Hertzmann, A. (2022b). The choices hidden in photography, J. Vis. 22, 10. doi: 10.1167/jov.22.11.10.
-
Hertzmann, A. (2024). Toward a theory of perspective perception in pictures, J. Vis. 24, 23. doi: 10.1167/jov.24.4.23.
-
Huynh, C., Zhou, Y., Lin, Z., Barnes, C., Shechtman, E., Amirgh, ppodsi, S. and Shrivastava, A. (2023). SimpSON: simplifying photo cleanup with single-click distracting object segmentation network, in: Proc. IEEE/CVF Conf. Comput. Vis. Pattern Recogn. (CVPR), Vancouver, BC, Canada, pp. 14518–14527.
-
Keats, J. (2015). How Richard Estes makes his paintings of New York more accurate than photographs, Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2015/03/04/see-how-richard-estes-makes-his-paintings-of-new-york-more-accurate-than-photographs/.
-
Kemp, M. (1990). The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, USA.
-
Koenderink, J., van Doorn, A., de Ridder, H. and Oomes, S. (2010). Visual rays are parallel, Perception 39, 1163–1171. doi: 10.1163/22134913-00002043.
-
Koenderink, J., van Doorn, A., Pinna, B. and Pepperell, R. (2016). On right and wrong drawings, Art Percept. 4, 1–38. doi: 10.1163/22134913-00002043.
-
Kubovy, M. (1986). The Psychology of Perspective and Renaissance Art. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United KIngdom.
-
Lee, H., Shechtman, E., Wang, J. and Lee, S. (2013). Automatic upright adjustment of photographs with robust camera calibration, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 36, 833–844. doi: 10.1109/TPAMI.2013.166.
-
Matthews, W. J. and Adams, A. (2008). Another reason why adults find it hard to draw accurately, Perception 37, 628–630. doi: 10.1068/p5895.
-
McManus, I. C., Loo, P.-W., Chamberlain, R., Riley, H. and Brunswick, N. (2011). Does shape constancy relate to drawing ability? Two failures to replicate, Empir. Stud. Arts 29, 191–208. doi: 10.2190/EM.29.2.d.
-
Miangoleh, S. M. H., Bylinskii, Z., Kee, E., Shechtman, E. and Aksoy, Y. (2023). Realistic saliency guided image enhancement, in: Proc. IEEE/CVF Conf. Comput. Vis. Pattern Recogn. (CVPR), Vancouver, BC, Canada, pp. 186–194.
-
Ostrofsky, J., Kozbelt, A. and Seidel, A. (2012). Perceptual constancies and visual selection as predictors of realistic drawing skill, Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts 6, 124–136. doi: 10.1037/a0026384.
-
Pepperell, R. (2015). Egocentric perspective: depicting the body from its own point of view, Leonardo 48, 424–429. doi: 10.1162/LEON_a_01056.
-
Pepperell, R. and Haertel, M. (2014). Do artists use linear perspective to depict visual space? Perception 43, 395–416. doi: 10.1068/p7692.
-
Perdreau, F. and Cavanagh, P. (2014). Drawing skill is related to the efficiency of encoding object structure, Iperception 5, 101–119. doi: 10.1068/i0635.
-
Perdreau, F. and Cavanagh, P. (2015). Drawing experts have better visual memory while drawing, J. Vis. 15, 5. doi: 10.1167/15.5.5.
-
Perona, P. (2013). Far and yet close: Multiple viewpoints for the perfect portrait, Art Percept. 1, 105–120. doi: 10.1163/22134913-00002005.
-
Reith, E. and Liu, C. H. (1995). What hinders accurate depiction of projective shape? Perception 24. 995–1010. doi: 10.1068/p240995.
-
Roman, A., Garg, G. and Levoy, M. (2004). Interactive design of multi-perspective images for visualizing urban landscapes, in: IEEE Vis. 2004, Austin, TX, USA, pp. 537–544. doi: 10.1109/VISUAL.2004.50.
-
Rosenholtz, R. (2020). Demystifying visual awareness: peripheral encoding plus limited decision complexity resolve the paradox of rich visual experience and curious perceptual failures. Atten Percept Psychophys. 82, 901–925. doi: 10.3758/s13414-019-01968-1.
-
Schmidt, R., Khan, A., Kurtenbach, G. and Singh, K. (2009). On expert performance in 3D curve-drawing tasks, in: Proc. 6th Eurograph. Symp. Sketch Based Interfaces Model., SBIM ’09, New Orleans, LA, USA, pp. 133–140. doi: 10.1145/1572741.1572765.
-
Seitz, S. M. and Kim, J. (2003). Multiperspective imaging, IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl., 23, 16–19. doi: 10.1109/MCG.2003.1242377.
-
Sharpless, T. K., Postle, B. and German, D. M. (2010). Pannini: A new projection for rendering wide angle perspective images, in: Computational Aesthetics ’10: Proc. Sixth Int. Conf. Comput. Aesthet. Graphics Vis. Imaging, pp. 9–16, London, United Kingdom. doi: 10.2312/COMPAESTH/COMPAESTH10/009-016.
-
Szeliski, R. (2007). Image alignment and stitching: A tutorial, Foundations and Trends® in Computer Graphics and Vision, Vol. 2, Now Publishers, Boston, MA, USA, pp. 1–104. doi: 10.1561/0600000009.
-
Szeliski, R. and Shum, H.-Y. (1997). Creating full view panoramic image mosaics and environment maps, in: Proc. SIGGRAPH 1997: 24th Ann. Conf. Comput. Graph. Interact. Tech., Los Angeles, CA, USA, pp. 653–660. doi: 10.1145/3596711.3596780.
-
Verstegen, I. (2010). A classification of perceptual corrections of perspective distortions in Renaissance painting, Perception 39, 677–694. doi: 10.1068/p6150.
-
Vishwanath, D., Girshick, A. R. and Banks, M. S. (2005). Why pictures look right when viewed from the wrong place, Nat. Neurosci. 8, 1401–1410. doi: 10.1038/nn1553.
-
Ward, J. L. (1976). A reexamination of Van Gogh’s pictorial space, Art Bull. 58, 593–604. doi: 10.1080/00043079.1976.10787347.
-
Winkenbach, G. and Salesin, D. H. (1994). Computer-generated pen-and-ink illustration, in: SIGGRAPH 1994: Proc. 21st Annu. Conf. Comput. Graph. Interact. Tech., Los Angeles, CA, USA, pp. 91–100. doi: 10.1145/192161.192184.
-
Wood, D. N., Finkelstein, A., Hughes, J. F., Thayer, C. E. and Salesin, D. H. (1997). Multiperspective panoramas for cel animation, in: Proc. SIGGRAPH 1997: 24th Ann. Conf. Comput. Graph. Interact. Tech., Los Angeles, CA, USA, pp. 243–250.
-
Zelnik-Manor, L., Peters, G. and Perona, P. (2005). Squaring the circle in panoramas, in: Tenth IEEE Int. Conf. Comput. Vis. (ICCV’05), Vol. 1, Beijing, China, pp. 1292–1299. doi: 10.1109/ICCV.2005.231.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 352 | 352 | 152 |
| Full Text Views | 11 | 11 | 5 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 23 | 23 | 5 |
Comparing Perspective in Drawings, Photographs, and Perception
In: Art & PerceptionSearch for other papers by Aaron Hertzmann in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
In this paper, I compare perspective in my observational drawings to photographs that I took at the same time, and, where memory allows, discuss how both relate to the visual experiences. This comparison reveals several consistent trends, including systematic size differences for distant objects, differences in foreshortening, a dependence of object shape on canvas shape, and multiperspective composition. Many of these trends can be found in historical artworks as well. Some have been previously identified in the literature, but discussions often involve very incomplete information, for example, analysis of Renaissance perspective has involved considerable speculation about the artists’ subjects and thought processes, and unfounded assumptions about the “correctness” of linear perspective. In general, if a painting and a photograph of a scene differ in some aspect, it might be that the drawing does not match visual experience of that aspect, that the photograph does not, or both. Identifying such systematic differences offers avenues for future study of how pictures and visual experience relate, and what causes these differences.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 352 | 352 | 152 |
| Full Text Views | 11 | 11 | 5 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 23 | 23 | 5 |