ABSTRACT
The original argument in favor of perspective as the true representation of the world comes from the theorists of the Renaissance who made use of the familiar analogy of the painting as a window through which we perceive the scene beyond. Erwin Panofsky says that the geometrical perspective of the Renaissance makes the assumption that the planer cross section of the visual pyramid can pass for an adequate reproduction of our optical image. The geometrical space of a perspective rendering is infinite and homogeneous and represents things as seen with only one eye. The dispute about whether geometrical perspective represents the world as it really appears seems to entangle two distinct issues. One involves the old idea about the history of art as a progress toward more and more convincing representation and whether Renaissance perspective is the last step in that evolution. The other issue involves philosophical distinctions between appearance and reality.
