Sort each device by how it produces depth.
Groups: Geometric construction · Atmospheric and tonal · Neither: it works by occlusion or convention
- Spaced transversals
- Haze softening darks
- Higher distant figures
- Paler, cooler hills
- Converging orthogonals
- Overlapping contours
Hints
- Two of the six need a horizon and a fixed viewing position.
- Two of them work entirely by removing contrast rather than by placing anything.
Show the answer
Geometric construction: Converging orthogonals, Spaced transversals
Atmospheric and tonal: Paler, cooler hills, Haze softening darks
Neither: it works by occlusion or convention: Overlapping contours, Higher distant figures
The third column is the one that travels. Occlusion and height in the field are read by viewers with no training in the European construction at all, which is why paintings from traditions that never adopted perspective are still spatially legible, and why the construction is best understood as one option rather than as the default.
Practise Pictorial Space and the Picture Plane
The app has 6 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Painting I is free to start.
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