BYZANTINE SPACETIME
I photographed this fresco in the Chora Church in Istanbul. In the reconstructed image, one can see the inconsistent use of perspective geometry. This Byzantine painting was done most likely in the 1300s, well before the discovery of the modern perspective system. Some of the building forms are oriented in one way, and others with another geometric orientation. There is no common vanishing point. It is as if some of the buildings are seen from above and below simultaneously. Yet this image with it’s inconsistent geometrical worldview should be inspirational. It is engaging. There is a sense of movement because there is not an optical unity. We call it Byzantine Spacetime.
As Edgerton asks in The Renaissance Rediscovery of Linear Perspective,
“Why have we in the post-Renaissance West become so insensitive to the non-perspectival conventions of our own early Middle Ages.?”
While we know that the course of Western civilization has been the progression of logic and scientific understanding, it still is curious that we have forgotten this early pictorial mode. If you take a close look at the fresco with fresh eyes and an open mind, you might be inspired to employ this sort of multiview, or imperfect method for your own drawing.
There was a wonderful human subjectivity to the artist of the middle ages. The artist was more wholly engaged with the world. Whereas in the modern perspective, you are essentially standing outside the image and looking in; there is less participation and engagement of the viewer. Being on the outside looking in might very well summarize a common modern angst.
Transparent Drawing allows for this multiview approach. Yet this multiview experience is provided within a consistent modern axonometric or perspective construction.
While the perspective may be “inconsistent”, what interests me (and this may only be the section and angle the fresco is photographed at) is a quasi-bird’s-eye view. I’m put in mind of the “isometric” perspective in some Japanese prints. (An example is Maruyama’s View of the Port of Nagasaki, c1700s or the 1857 woodblock print with a bird’s-eye view perspective by Hiroshige of a goshawk peering down at Tokyo from the top right of the print.) It’s the lack of convergence that creates the illusion of viewing on high. Cezanne (in particular) and other Impressionists were influenced by ukio-e prints they were able to purchase. The prints inspired Cezanne to alter the conventional use of perspective. While the aerial perspective in the fresco here may not be “true” (distant objects don’t become smaller), it certainly adds visual interest and implies spacial complexity which is one aspect of Transparent Drawing, So if you are suggesting we break free of linear perspectives, yes, yes, yes. One element of your drawings that interests me is that you mostly show a straight on, slightly elevated view of buildings. Can’t transparency also be effected with a “worm’s-eye” view? That is, looking at the underside with the observer looking up and into the structure?
The worm’s eye view that you perceptively suggest is what is called a Choisey Axonometric. I will have a comprehensive post on the Choisey Axonometric projection methods and concepts soon. Choisey has been a favorite of mine ever since architecture school. Yet as we will see, a Choisey Axon is rare these days. Also as you suggest, breaking free of the linear perspective frees your imagination. Yet I’ll bet there is not one CAD 3D computer program out there that gives you anything other than a rigid isometric or linear perspective. Hmmm. Maybe that is an idea for a new CAD software? Thanks.