ABSTRACT
We are often exhorted, cspecially by politicians on the defensive, to 'get things in perspectivc' but, when you come to think of it, this is an odd metaphor to choose for seeing things in their true relative proportions. If that is the aim, would it not be better to see things in plan, elevation and section, drawn to scale? In that form, shapes and sizes are readily comparable by eye and precisely measurable, whereas in perspective no solid object or two-dimensional surface can be represented in its right shape, unless it is seen head-on, in which case it can hardly be said Lo be in pcrspective. As for right size, this is the thing that perspective especiaJly falsifies. Another version of the diehe would have us 'stand back and get things in perspective', but in practice. the more we stand back. the less do parallels scem to converge, and the less do similar objects at varying distances seem to vary in size; by standing back we tend to get the perspective out of things.
