1

Year 4-6 Art Project

One Point Perspective

Perspective is a technique used by artists to make their pictures more realistic. Although the work of art is done on a flat surface, it gives it an illusion of depth, as if you could enter the picture and walk from the front of the scene to the back.

Painters in the 1300s experimented with perspective, but didn’t get it quite right. Look at this painting by Giotto, in San Francesco in Assisi. It is of St Francis giving up his worldly goods, but the buildings in the background are at rather odd angles.

The Legend of St Francis: Renouncing worldly goods, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi by Giotto c. 1297-99

2

By the 1400s artists understood how to use one point perspective. This is where you have a fixed point, called the vanishing point, on the horizon line and the parallel lines and surfaces that travel away from you converge (come together) towards that point. Also, objects become smaller the further away they are.

This photograph shows you how it works.

Now with the perspective lines added

You can see how all the parallel lines meet at the vanishing point on the horizon.

3

Task 1:

Look on the internet to find photographs of railway lines and roads that show this.

In Italy artists became very skilled at this technique. Here are three paintings by Italian artists:

Christ Handing the Keys to St Peter by Pietro Perugino

This painting is a bit like the road, the lines on the paving give the illusion of space and distance, but the next two paintings also have buildings with lines which travel towards the vanishing point.

4

Annunciation with St Emidius by Carlo Crivelli

5

The School of Athens, Sanzio Raffaello

You can see how in each painting it is as if you were looking into a real space because the parallel lines get closer together and the buildings get smaller the farther back they are supposed to be.

Task 2:

Draw lines on each painting to find out where the vanishing point is.

Task 3:

Choose one of the three paintings and find out:

When it was painted

Where it was painted for

Some information about the artist – e.g. when and where he was born

find another work of art that he painted

6

Artists in Holland also used one point perspective. Here is a painting by Meindert Hobbema

The Avenue at Middelharnis by Meyndert Hobbema, 1689

Task 4

Draw the perspective lines on the picture.

Then either copy Hobbema’s painting, or make up your own picture of a road lined with trees. Use pencils, felt tip pens.

Start by marking a place on the paper for your vanishing point, then using the perspective lines of Hobbema’s painting as a guide, draw the perspective lines lightly in pencil so that you can use them to help you with your own picture.

7

Later artists such as Vincent Van Gogh also used one point perspective.

This is a painting of his room where he was staying in Arles in France.

Bedroom at Arles by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

In this painting it is more difficult to see where the perspective lines are. Rather than following any parallel lines that are there, Van Gogh has joined up points in the furniture to use as his perspective lines. If you look carefully you will begin to find these lines. I have drawn them in to help you.

8

Task 5

Either:

copy two of the pieces of furniture in the painting

or, if you would like a challenge, try to draw your bedroom.