Masters of Illusion

   The video “Masters of Illusion” explores basic visual techniques from the Renaissance, which are now employed in cinematography. The idea of how to make a flat picture three-dimensional was first studied in depth in the Renaissance period. Brunelleschi discovered the idea of linear perspective, parallel lines drawing together to create a vanishing point. Giotto, the father of Renaissance painting first explored parallel lines creating depth, but without a vanishing point, and Masaccio painted The Trinity, one of the first paintings to use linear perspective. Sculpture also used linear perspective, creating the illusion of vast space.

   Piero Della Francesca, painter and mathematician, created octagons with systematic perspective, creating depth in paintings. Uccello’s perspective drawing of a pot resembles a grasp of perspective that we would expect from a computer-generated drawing. Albrecht Durer was the first to create works using multiple vanishing points.

   The analysis of light and shadow was also explored in the Renaissance period and added to the three-dimensional effect of works at that time. Light creates depth through shadow cast on and from the form as well as light reflected off of it. Leonardo DaVinchi discovered atmospheric perspective, which can be achieved through blurring and adding blue to elements in the distance.

   These studies of ways to create perspective were discovered many years ago and are still relevant today. In photography the choice of what to blur and what to focus on can create perspective the way atmospheric perspective in painting creates it. This video also helped me understand how pictures create a window into a three-dimensional space.