Saturday, October 1, 2011

Perspective Drawings, Jan Vredeman De Vries, 1604


Bit of a lazy post on my part, I'm afraid. I'm working on a post about drawing wheels in Perspective as an add-on to a previous post about drawing arches in perspective, and I came across these great drawings so decided just to post them quickly.

It's amazing to me how many volumes were published regarding Perspective through the centuries, right up to the present. At first I thought that the topic was exhausted, but realized quickly that there are tons of different theories about representing objects in space.

The likes of Leonardo was probably aware of ninety of them, but like most artists, appears to have employed only two or three.

These images are from a four volume set of books by De Vries, published in 1604-1605












4 comments:

  1. I get dizzy just thinking about designing the last one.They are all incredible.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Really astounding. I am amazed at artists with such precision!

    xoxo
    Karena

    Art by Karena

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dover made an inexpensive reprint of the perspective drawings of De Vries that is probably still easy and inexpensive to buy in case you want a copy. Although the primary function of the drawings was probably instructional, for me they suggest a thought provoking world of their own. I was thinking of them recently because there is a very talented contemporary artist named Pablo Bronstein, who draws architectural subjects often with baroque overtones, whose work is sometimes strongly suggestive of De Vries. I love your blog, and you never fail to come up with an exceptionally interesting entry.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the Bronstein link, Howard, and I agree with you; instructional diagrams from that era are always a trip. Like those anatomical studies where it looks like flayed humans dragging their organs behind them, going through mundane tasks in a naturalistic setting. Bizarre

    ReplyDelete