Perspective

Perspective and proportions tend to go hand-in-hand. If you have one correct, it's pretty easy to get the other going in the right direction. Really both aspects of art are most concerned with angles and how shapes and masses interact and relate with each other.

But perspective, as we understand it today, wasn't always in the bag of artist tricks. In the past, there was a more natural approach to it, observing relationships without adhering to a scientific application of measurement. This was an organic perspective, one which is readily observable in pre-Renaissance paintings. In many instances, artists still utilize the method of observing angles without implementing linear perspective techniques. Usually with smaller studies (still-life or figure, for instance) an artist may not need to employ linear perspective approaches.

What is linear perspective? It is a method discovered and utilized throughout the Renaissance by artists whose goal was to replicate more exactly how we see things within our picture plane. It is based within a geometric and mathematical system of measurements, which can give precise angles of objects. The simplest method of understanding linear perspective is to see "one-point perspective". Imagine a line of telephone poles traveling into the distance. Eventually they meet the horizon, at a certain point. You can trace a line from the top of the nearest telephone pole straight to the point on the horizon and, if each pole is of the same alignment and height of the nearest, you'll trace along the top of each pole. The same thing would happen if tracing from the bottom of the nearest pole straight to the point on the horizon. The following diagram (from Paul Heaston) shows how this works.

This diagram also shows "two-point perspective" in how the cross-bar follows a different line to a different point. So, with two points on the horizon line, we can create a realistic understanding of perspective and replicate what we naturally see, through the use of math.

This can be used to highlight something important. For instance, Da Vinci uses one-point perspective to center The Last Supper on Jesus Christ, bringing all of the focus to the primary subject. You can see that he reinforces his perspective with a grid on the ceiling and divisions within the walls.

Scorsese uses this technique in Raging Bull to highlight the most crucial moment of Jake LaMotta's fight against Sugar Ray Robinson. All of the focus is on Sugar Ray. The whole arena seems to converge on him, and him alone. We are seeing him from the perspective of Jake and we see how powerful Sugar Ray is. We feel the importance of the moment.

Along with linear and organic perspective, we can show perspective in other ways, too. We can show it simply by overlapping objects. Closer objects will obscure further objects and this will clue in the viewer that there is a distance between the two. Some artists purposefully compose a "flat" scene in which perspective is downplayed. Wes Anderson is famous for "flat" compositions, which read more like a stage-play than an immersive experience. We find ourselves observing the acting and production, rather than feeling like we are in the moment with them.

Compare this to the storyboards for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. We feel the character's confusion and tension. We are in the character's shoes. Each shot is full of overlapping objects and dynamic angles. This brings us right into the scene. We're not merely observing a character - we are the character!

These storyboards show us something called atmospheric perspective, as well. Observable in most of the thumbnails, but most noticeable in the image with the falling woman, we see that objects closer to our view have a higher value range than those further from our view. The man's hair is a dark black and the highlights on his face are a bright white, while the woman is simply varying degrees of grey. This occurs in real life. Let's imagine we are driving in a car. We see our dash, the land around us, and distant mountains. The shadows in the controls of our dash are going to be close to black, while the sunlight creates some high values on the brightest portions of our car. We are able to see a higher variety of values. If we look at the land around us, we will notice that the shadows aren't nearly as dark and the highlights are actually a bit lower in value than the ones that are nearest to us. And the distant mountains are essentially one value or maybe two, but there really is not much contrast.

In this image, you can see that the nearest rocks have darker shadows and brighter highlights than the middle-ground, and that the furthest mountains are essentially one tone. There are small exceptions, such as the snow in the mountains, however we must remember that snow is a far amount whiter than these grey-brown rocks. Atmospheric perspective does take the whiteness of the snow down quite a bit though. We can see that it is not absolutely white, but a sort of grey-blue white. An amateur artist would be tempted to paint the distant snow as pure white, but we now know better.

Thickness of line can also illustrate perspective. Line, of course, is typically used in contour drawings. Contour drawings don't exactly lend themselves to differing value-tones in the same way that paintings do, so there are different methods of establishing perspective with only line.

You can see here, that Rembrandt brought thicker lines to his foreground and thinner lines to his background. This is a very good way of establishing perspective through line-work. He also uses various methods of hatching to create shapes of value, in order to differentiate between the shapes in the middle-ground. This can be incredibly difficult to master and takes lots and lots of practice to get efficient at, but it is definitely worth knowing.

So, as you can see there are many ways to approach perspective and it is a tough beast to wrangle. It is important for artists to practice it often, even when they think they know it all (which is never a good mindset for an artist).

"The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these, the first includes the diminution (reduction) in size of opaque objects; the second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of color at long distances." - Leonardo Da Vinci

Proportions

Van Gogh - Skull

(Please note that the works I show throughout this article were done by men who are known more for their journeys into abstraction rather than intense detail, while still adhering to representative painting. This is to illustrate the greater importance of generally correct proportions rather than strict detail.)

Correct proportions solve many drawing problems. They are the basis of our understanding of what an object is. If I can understand the shape of an object along with how it looks in scale to another object, I'm well on my way to having a proper understanding of what I am seeing. In fact, due to the high proficiency of our brains in learning and cataloging what we see and experience, oftentimes we can calculate what an object is even while it is partially obscured or seen with blurry vision. So, the artist is at an advantage if he or she can express their subject with good proportions.

This is easier said than done, of course, but it should take some of the pressure off of the artist, in that there will be some emphasis taken off of the details. While it is certainly true that a detailed work can be impressive and that the "devil is in the details", so to speak, there is a reason that artists through the ages have taught a general-to-specific approach to their work. More important than the details are correct proportions and relationships. Think of Cezanne or a Monet - they are convincing their audience while only relaying limited information.

Cezanne - La Mont Sainte Victoire

Monet - Waterloo Bridge

In my experience, even the most amateur artist can have a successful drawing, just by representing their subjects with good proportions. The angles can be off (although good proportions will generate good angles; and vice versa), the line quality may be off, the light and shadow may not be rendered very well, or any other variety of problems may plague the work, but good proportions will relay the information needed by the audience to understand what they are looking at.

Proportions are essentially measurements. There are different ways to go about taking these measurements and applying them to your work. I use one of two different methods depending on my subject matter and style. One is the technique I've used most of my life. It involves picking a point and working out from it - for instance, I may be drawing a face and will choose to start with the eye and slowly work out from it, in different directions, measuring intuitively and based upon what I've already marked. This method is not easy and can quickly go awry, being unnoticeable at first, but evident at the end, as shapes are a little wonky or angles are a little off. The reason being that it is more difficult to see the whole, when you are so focused on the parts. If you have a skilled eye, you may not run into this issue. I never had much of a difficulty with it. This is typically a good approach when dealing with copying from a 2D source.

However, as I have received more education, challenged myself by drawing from life, and diversified my styles, I have had to employ the more traditional approach of moving from large shapes to small shapes. The best way to measure proportions in this way, is to work with angles. Seeing relationships between outer edges and inner edges, rhythmic lines, how parts fit with each other, and just attempting to be accurate with shapes are the keys to measuring with this method. It's difficult to explain with words, but is more obvious in action. This method requires drawing lightly, connecting points to other points, and slowly building the subject up by establishing where the planes are and how they relate to one another. This is a fantastic approach to establishing general proportions and initial composition, as it declares immediately what it is that you are drawing.

Hopefully later on I can post a video or step sequence to show exactly what I mean by both of these techniques. In the meantime, try to experiment with both approaches and train yourself to loosen up and communicate the whole, rather than the parts.

"Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere." G.K. Chesterton