A recent composition of mine, ’A406 Sunset’, contains a natural geometric device of converging lines towards a distant horizon. Converging lines towards a vanishing point is probably the simplest demonstration of perspective and three dimensional space. Children developing their ability to draw eventually discover this simple device, progressing from flattened landscapes to creating more realistic spaces. Artists grapple with deciphering and constructing complicated viewpoints in their work, and some exaggerate perspective for a sense of drama, verging on the realm of optical illusion.

Much of Surrealist Salvador Dalí’s famous style, for example, involved using dramatic and distorted viewpoints, presented mischievously to challenge the viewer’s senses. Even the simple converging lines device mentioned above was used by Dalí, albeit it in a subtle but no less dynamic style in his painting The Eye (1945). 

Figure 1 shows the original painting that features a set of parallel lines heading towards a desert horizon. Because the lines are perfectly symmetrical one assumes that the viewer’s position and line of sight would be positioned just below them, as highlighted in the diagram with the blue head. The viewer, however, is not placed in the centre of the picture but - rather incongruously - to the left, giving a slightly unnatural sense of displacement. Dalí added an extra line on the right hand side to balance the composition slightly. If one cropped the image on the right hand side the perspective of the lines in relation to the viewer would appear correct but the composition suddenly become too balanced and bland, as the lines and the menacing hovering eye are placed dead centre.

The real world of course is not always so theoretically pristine in appearance, which poses a challenge when painting outdoors. Fellow artist Rob Adams is a highly technical and versatile artist who relishes the challenge of solving such complex landscapes. Take, for example, an intricate pen and ink study he made of famous Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, with it’s steep gradient. The vertical lines of the buildings converge slightly to the top centre of the the picture, giving the viewer a sense of looking up along an acute slope. If you compare Rob’s drawing to a photograph that I took last year of the same street scene you can see how the camera exaggerates the converging lines of the buildings, making them appear tilting over, giving an unnatural sense of giddiness.

The human eye, itself a camera, also sees angles in this way but the brain compensates for the exaggerations and alongside peripheral vision, makes our viewing of the world smoother. Rob successfully recreated the steepness and physical quality of Gold Hill without distorting the perspective, giving his drawing a better sense of actually ‘being there’.

My plein air cityscape, The Shard and Union Street, SE1 contains multiple viewpoints which juxtapose busily together. The tall Shard is seen looming in the distance but I wanted it to coexist with an imposing residential block in the mid to foreground on the left. For the composition I straightened the vertical perspective of the residential block so it didn’t appear to tilt awkwardly inwards (highlighted in green.)