Perspective is easy; yet surprisingly few artists are familiar with the simple laws that make it so. It is the purpose of this book to make these laws clear.
One of the things that have simplified perspective for us is our way of building things. We live in a world of square corners; our streets, buildings, furniture, all are designed with a square. We find it convenient to be able to fit any of the corners of a table into any of the corners of the room; hence we build that way. This fact has made perspective drawing quite simple. When we have learned to draw the humble brick we have learned practical perspective.
This book explains perspective step by step, depending on illustrations to carry the sequence. Some steps are repeated, but deliberately so, to emphasize their importance. A great deal of stress is placed on “the eye-level.” A bird’s-eye view and a worm’s-eye view of the world are quite different. A six-foot man in a crowd sees hats and hair, faces and shoulders. A four-foot child beside him sees hands, gloves, purses, and coattails. They are both seeing the same people at the same time. How different are their two visual worlds! Our height above the ground is an important factor when we sketch the world about us. The eye-level is really the key to perspective drawing.
The knowledge of perspective should be used as a guide to drawing and not as a device to harden into stiff mechanics what might have been a beautiful loosely handled sketch. We build a strong scaffolding for the construction of our bridge; later we discard the scaffolding and keep only the graceful span.