A D V E N T U R E S in C Y B E R S O U N DDrawing Aids to Perspective : 'Alberti's Veil' to today's 'Spectra Sketch'
Prior to Wollaston's Camera Lucida of 1806 and Varley's Graphic Telescope of 1811 there was a range of devices developed around the 15th and 16th centuries to aid the artist in correctly illustrating linear perspective. Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo Da Vinci and later Albrecht Dürer and the lesser known Jacob de Keyser developed these devices.
Perspective is a system that is used by artists, designers, engineers, etc. to represent three- dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface. An artist uses perspective in order to represent nature or objects in the most effective way possible. It evolved from "Construzione Legittma" that was probably invented in the earth fifteenth century, most likely by Fillipo Brunelleschi. Leon Battista Alberti, Uccello and Piero della Francesca all improved upon Brunelleschi's theories. In a perspective system, the idea is that although parallel lines never meet, they can be made to appear as if they do meet. Also, parallel lines do meet if they are going in one direction, and there is a vanishing point at that these lines meet on the horizon. These early theories about perspective were based on a single vanishing point, and any other parallels were exempted from the idea that they had to meet at some point in the distance. This system works very well as an aesthetic system in order for the artist to create an order that is independent of order, or a world in a picture that is distinct from the real world. However, the system does not work well if an artist is trying to create an exact, physically real image. In order to compensate for this duality, a new system of perspective emerged that used two vanishing points on the horizon as a minimum, with more points being used in order to reflect uphill and downhill representations. Also, by use of measuring points, objects can be much more realistically scaled. These ideas are easily learned in a short period of time by artists. However, most artists are no longer interested in the representation of three-dimensional objects and so either reject the idea or create their own illusions of space within their artwork. http://www.jonessquare.com/art-square/eoa1/dictfive.html
The Artist's Glass - c.1450 Devised by Leon Battista Alberti and or used by Leonardo da Vinci
 Albrecht Dürer's interpretation of the 'Artist's Glass'
Ray Tracing is an elegant systematization and extrapolation of an idea that goes back at least to Brunelleschi's early perspective studies: that you can create an accurate perspective view by painting on a transparent screen interposed between the eye and the scene, matching shapes and colors on the picture plane to shapes and colors in the scene beyond. also... Spectra Sketch: A modern day 'Artist's Glass'
"Perspective is nothing else than the seeing of an object through a sheet of glass, on the surface of which may be marked all the things that are behind the glass"We are all familiar with the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci. He is renowned as a painter, sculptor and inventor. Few people, however, are aware that he also described an instrument that teaches drawing. Leonardo, in his Trattato della Pittura, refers to a Perspective Frame as his method of studying diminishing perspective. He also recommends it for training the eye and keeping the painter's eye in practice by sketching all kinds of natural subjects.
 Periscope Sketcher
Advertisement from 'The Studio' June 15, 1920
"From our own case studies and tests involving our own students, even with children as young as 5 years old, we must agree wholeheartedly that Leonardo's theory has proven true beyond dispute. Since Leonardo's theory is well-founded, it is apparent that his 'Perspective Frame' provides a serviceable method for exercising visual skills. To us now, it seems unexplanable that this valuable and interesting invention should have remained all but lost. We are eager to produce and distribute an adaptation of this ancient apparatus."
 The Spectra Sketch
Alfred Merolla, the inventor of the Spectra Sketch art training instrument, is offering a portable model of Leonardo's perspective frame to aspiring artists, therapists, parents and teachers. Leanardo da Vinci's Perspective Frame improves fine motor skills, perceptual skills and cross-motor coordination. Listed are a few of the many ways that Leanardo's wonderful invention can assist todays therapists.
Alberti's Grid - c.1450 (also known as Alberti's Veil) also known as The Square Grid of the Renaissance
 Alberti's Grid
Another distant ancestor of modern pixel grids which translated the results of Brunelleschi's experiments into text and drawings - Leon Battista Alberti - describes the Reticolato, a transparent grid that could be placed in front of a scene as an aid to drawing in perspective. [This was later elaborated into the various forms of drawing aids such as the Camera Lucida which] were popular before the emergence of photography. also... Enlarging and Reducing (diminishing) Machine, 1451 Invented by Leone Battista Alberti (1404 - 1472), architect and author of the much-read book on architecture De Re Aedificatoria (ca. 1465). Writes Vasari, "in 1451 when the very useful method of printing books was invented by Giovanni Gutenberg, Battista devised something similar, namely, an enlarging and diminishing machine." Vasari quotes from other written sources, however, and omits what the machinery does. In Rerun Italicarum Scriptores (Muratori, 1738), book 25, the description is of a camera obscura or diorama. Alternately, it might be the screened device illustrated by Albert Dürer, used for drawing (after 1505). This was after Dürer's visits to Italy "to learn the secret art of perspective." It is the camera obscura in obverse or turned inside-out. http://www.blight.com/~jno/reclaim/
The artist draws via a latticed window
The traditional form of pictorial representation using perspective methods developed by Renaissance artists is sometimes referred to as Alberti's Window. This is because, in his treatise Della Pittura, [trans: On Painting], 1435-6, the Classical theorist and painter Leon Battista Alberti noted that, when he set out to paint a scene on a panel, he assumed the picture would represent the visible world as if he were looking through a window. Some artists did, in fact, create grids across the opening of a window and transfer the scene to a grided canvas as compelling evidence that western perspective was a natural form of representation. http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/fad/fi/woodrow/an-words.htm also... James Ackerman has pointed out how literally the window analogy [aka. 'Leonardo's Window'] was taken by Italian Renaissance painters by noting that Italian picture frames were once designed to resemble windows surrounds. (See James Ackerman, Alberti's Light, in: Irving Lavin and John Plummer (eds.), Studies in Late Medieval Painting in Honor of Millard Meiss, New York: New York University Press, 1977)
The Draftsman's Net - c.1450? A variation on Leon Battista Alberti's Grid or Veil
 Albrecht Dürer's interpretation of 'The Draftsman's Net'
La Perspective Pratique, Paris - 1642 Text by P. Le Dubreuil, translated by E.Chambers, undated, c.1730 Chapter 6: Drawing Instruments Dubreuil's La Perspective Pratique, was first published anonymously, and then fast became the definitive perspective book for architects, artists and other interested parties. The English translation, rich in plates and concise intruction, was given a new introduction by Mr.Hodgson. According to Lawrence Wright's Perspective in Perspective, RKP London 1983, the book remained standard until the publication of Pozzo's Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum in Rome in 1693 with a London edition in 1707. P. Le Dubreuil by Michael Pidgley http://cccw.adh.bton.ac.uk/schoolofdesign/MA.COURSE/LPM01.html Please allow time for the following set of four (4) pages to load
another reference to the above...
DUBREUIL (Jean) LA PERSPECTIVE PRATIQUE. Petit In-4, veau brun, dos à nerfs et fleurons dorés, pièce de titre et de tomaison, tranches rouges. A Paris, Chez la Veuve de François Langlois. 1649. 20 ff. n. ch. (faux-titre, frontispice, titre, Au Lecteur, Ordre des Traités, Table, Privilège du Roi, Instruction sur le Traité 1), 165 pp., 7 ff n. ch. (Table des Matières), Reliure de l'époque. Coins usés, mouillure pâle sur les pr. ff. 7000 FRF - 1067,14 EUR EDITION ORIGINALE TRES RARE, de la troisième partie, de cet ouvrage sur la perspective pratique, qui donne toutes les règles de cette science, et les effets admirables des Trois Rayons Droit, Réfléchi, et Brisé. Il est divisé en trois parties, chacune étant subdivisée en différents traités, dont parmi les plus importants : - Les pratiques des perspectives vues de bas en haut propres aux plafonds et aux voûtes; - De l'optique ou les effets admirables du rayon droit sur les plans unis, pyramidaux, coni- ques, et irrégulier, tant convexes, que concaves ; - De la catoptrique qui contient les beautés ravissantes du rayon réfléchi sur les miroirs plans, ou plats, ronds, ou cylindriques, à pans, ou de plusieursfaces, pyramides, et coniques - De la dioptrique ou il se parle seulement du rayon brisé qui par l'inégalité de l'épaisseur d un verre, produit un effet merveilleux, etc. L'illustration est inpressionnante, elle comprend un beau frontispice allégorique et 166 planches hors-texte, certaines recto-verso, dont une planche à système, qui représentent des anamorphoses, des jeux d'optiques à l'aide de miroirs, maisons, objets, figures, éléments architecturaux, etc, etc. Bon exemplaire. Tome M seul. http://www.livre-rare-book.com/Matieres/kd/5633.html
'Jacob de Keyser's Invention' - c.1500 Developed by Jacob de Keyser
 Albrecht Dürer's interpretation of 'Jacob de Keyser's Invention'
Dürer's Device of 1525 - 1538 (also called Perspective Machine) Developed by Albrecht Dürer and mentioned in his Treatise on Measurement of 1525 and 1538 also... Albrecht Dürer's Treatise on Proportions (1528). [presumably the same document as Treatise on Measurement mentioned previously ?] [The document includes a description of] ...a tool used by Dürer during his lifelong search for the perfect human proportions. http://www.sirius.com/~andycox/Durer.htm also...
 'Man Drawing a Lute' ('The Draughtsman of the Lute'), 1525 Woodcut
Albrecht Dürer's Perspective Machine of 1525 anticipates the principle of ray tracing. See William J. Mitchell, 1992, The Reconfigured Eye. Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era MIT Press Cambridge, MA., USA
Prospettografo del Dürer (Trans: Dürer's Perspectograph)
 Dürer's Perspectograph (replica?)
Mechanical [Drawing] Aid - 16th c Devised by Salomon de Caus a variation on Dürer's Mechanical Aid more details to follow
Practical Perspective c.1610 - 1613 Text on perspective written by Ludovico Cigoli [b.1559, d.1613]
Perspective machine - 1663 Devised by J.(P?) Le Dubreuil more details to follow
Portable Perspective System - 1765 Devised by James Watt [b.1736, d.1819] more details to follow
Silhouette Machine - c.1780 more details to follow
Physionotrace -1784/86 Devised by Gilles-Louis Chrètien, it was one of the first devices to produce images for duplication. The device consisted of a pointer connected to a pencil through a system of levers which allowed tracing on paper of a profile shadow cast on glass. A pantograph at the same time transferred the image to a copper plate which then was engraved. Duplication was finally done by inking the plate and printing. The Physionotrace was widely used originally in Europe. Between 1793 and 1844 the French emigrant Charles Fevret de Saint-Memin brought Physionotrace to America. One of his most famous pictures of Thomas Jefferson dates back to 1804. A portrait session with the Physionotrace required roughly 4 minutes. also... Physionotrace devised by Gilles-Louis Chrètien. A mechanically-aided drawing machine that produces a engraved printing plate. Chretien's invention produced a mechanical portrait using a pantograph with an etching needle to transfer the sitter's image from a silhouette to a copperplate. See B. Newhall, The History of Photography, 1972, p. 11. http://www.cm-net.com/ai/blooms/auct/a961205/Page9.html
Camera Lucida - 1806 Camera lucida (||Cam"e*ra lu"ci*da) [L. camera chamber + L. lucidus, lucida, lucid, light.] (Opt.) An instrument which by means of a prism of a peculiar form, or an arrangement of mirrors, causes an apparent image of an external object or objects to appear as if projected upon a plane surface, as of paper or canvas, so that the outlines may conveniently traced. It is generally used with the microscope.
Websters Dictionary, 1913
The camera lucida was an artist's drawing aid. It allowed positioning a right-angle prism at eye level above the drawing board. Looking downward on the drawing with one eye looking through the prism, a virtual image of the scene in front, appears in the prism. also... Camera Lucida (Latin: "light chamber"), optical instrument invented in 1807 by William Hyde Wollaston to facilitate accurate sketching of objects. It consists of a four-sided prism mounted on a small stand above a sheet of paper. By placing the eye close to the upper edge of the prism so that half the pupil of the eye is over the prism, the observer is able to see a reflected image of an object situated in front of the prism, apparently lying on the paper. He can then trace the image with a pencil. In its original form the camera lucida was extremely difficult to focus properly, and a weak spectacle lens was added between the prism and the paper. A later form, developed about 1880 for use with a microscope, substituted two diagonal mirrors for the prism; one transparent mirror was positioned above the microscope eyepiece and the second at a short distance above the paper. http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/99/89.html also...
 Camera Lucida, c.1820 Signed: 'Dollond London'. Height 196 mm.
Oxford University also...
 Universal Camera Lucida
Advertisement from 'The Studio' June 15, 1920
LÉON Camera Lucida late 19c
Paul C. Smith, Deerfield Beach, FL., USA
 LÉON Camera Lucida late 19c - Operating Instructions
A larger version may also be downloaded
also... Camera Lucida (L. light chamber), the name is misleading, but was so called by analogy with the camera obscura. Invented at the beginning of the C19, the camera lucida is a drawing aid comprising of a lens of which is placed before the eye in such a way that the operator is able to trace the captured image on to a sheet of paper set below the lens. John H. Hammond, The camera lucida in art and science (1987) also... The Camera Lucida, designed in 1807 by Dr. William Wollaston, was an aid to drawing. It was a reflecting prism which enabled artists to draw outlines in correct perspective. No darkroom was needed. The paper was laid flat on the drawing board, and the artist would look through a lens containing the prism, so that he could see both the paper and a faint image of the subject to be drawn. He would then fill in the image. However, as anyone who has tried using these will know only too well, that too required artistic skills. http://members.tripod.com/~artphoto/cameras.html also... The Camera Lucida (Latin: lighted room) was invented in 1806. Used as an aid for drawing perspective accurately, it required a certain amount of drawing skill. By looking through a hole centered above a prism, the operator saw the subject projected on the drawing paper below. This virtual image was used as a guide for tracing the subject. The device could be easily carried. http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/academic/art/arh115/glossary.html also... Latin for 'light chamber', the Camera Lucida, an optical instrument was invented in 1807 by William Hyde Wollaston to facilitate accurate sketching of objects. It consists of a four-sided prism mounted on a small stand above a sheet of paper. By placing the eye close to the upper edge of the prism so that half the pupil of the eye is over the prism, the observer is able to see a reflected image of an object situated in front of the prism, apparently lying on the paper. The observer can then trace the image with a pencil. In its original form the Camera Lucida was extremely difficult to focus properly, and a weak spectacle lens was added between the prism and the paper. A later form, developed about 1880 for use with a microscope, substituted two diagonal mirrors for the prism; one transparent mirror was positioned above the microscope eyepiece and the second at a short distance above the paper. You may also wish to read more about William Hyde Wollaston also... The following was a description of a text for sale (Feb 1988) regarding Wollaston's work. "Wollaston, W. H. Description of the Camera Lucida... London, William Nicholson. 1807. Sfr. 680. Published in 'A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts' [edited by William Nicholson], Vol. xvii., p.1-5 and 1 full page engraving. Illustrated with 9 copper engravings and 1 aquatinta. (viii), 376 pp., [4]. 8vo. Full contemporary calf skilfully rebacked with recent gilt label to spine - Fine engraved ex libris to inside board. Gernsheim p. 19. Scarce copy of the first published description of Wollaston's Camera Lucida. Despite its name, Wollaston's invention was not a camera at all (although it is often mistaken as one as Talbot at one time drew with its aid) but a small optical instrument. By means of a prism, the artist saw a virtual image on his paper which facilitated the delineation of the object or view, but the image was not visible to anyone but the user of the instrument."
Patent Graphic Telescope - 1811 Developed by Cornelius Varley. A complex version of the previous instrument [Camera Lucida] combining a low powered telescope with the Camera Lucida. Large graphic telescopes were mounted on tripods with telescopic legs. It was patented in 1811.
 Graphic Telescope, c.1812
Signed: 'Cornelius Varley's Patent Graphic Telescope'. Height 150 mm, Length 225 mm.
 Graphic Telescope, c.1812 http://cccw.adh.bton.ac.uk/schoolofdesign/MA.COURSE/LArtAid0.html
Recommended Reading Brusati, Celeste, 1995, Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten, University of Chigago Press, Chicago, USA., Cole, Alison, 1993, Perspective: A Collins Eyewitness Guide to Art, Harper Collins, London, UK. Hankins, Thomas, L. and Silverman, Robert , J., 1995, Instruments and the Imagination, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ., USA., Kemp, Martin, 1990, The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat, Yale University Press, London UK., ISBN 0 300 04337 6 Leeman, Fred, 1976, Hidden Images: Games of Perception, Anamorphic Art, Illusion from the Renaissance to the Present, H., N Adams, New York, USA., Rogers, Nigel, (Ed.), 1998, Incredible Optical Illusions, Universal International P/L, London, UK., ISBN 1 876142 52 9
Back to the Top | Essays Index | Quit | eMail: Dr Russell Naughton |
