Perspective (graphical)

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External videos
Linear Perspective: Brunelleschi's Experiment, Khan Academy[1]
How One-Point Linear Perspective Works, Smarthistory[2]
Empire of the Eye: The Magic of Illusion: The Trinity-Masaccio, Part 2, National Gallery of Art[3]

Linear or point-projection perspective (from Latin perspicere 'to see through') is one of two types of graphical projection perspective in the graphic arts; the other is parallel projection.^{[citation needed][dubious – discuss]} Linear perspective is an approximate representation, generally on a flat surface, of an image as it is seen by the eye. Perspective drawing is useful for representing a three-dimensional scene in a two-dimensional medium, like paper. It is based on the optical fact that for a person an object looks N times (linearly) smaller if it has been moved N times further from the eye than the original distance was.

The most characteristic features of linear perspective are that objects appear smaller as their distance from the observer increases, and that they are subject to foreshortening, meaning that an object's dimensions parallel to the line of sight appear shorter than its dimensions perpendicular to the line of sight. All objects will recede to points in the distance, usually along the horizon line, but also above and below the horizon line depending on the view used.

Italian Renaissance painters and architects including Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca and Luca Pacioli studied linear perspective, wrote treatises on it, and incorporated it into their artworks.