ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses linear perspective, and describes how this technique perpetuates two problematic aspects of cartography – a rectangular format of the image, and the requirement for a very specific, unique point of view. The illusionistic nature of images constructed using linear perspective is well illustrated by anamorphic compositions. These are images which appear to be distorted when viewed from a frontal position, but which assume normal proportions when looked at from a particular viewpoint or angle. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was renewed interest in expanding two-dimensional images into three-dimensional space, and in exploiting multiple viewpoints to do so. The advent of photography in the second half of the 19th century brought an end to the profile silhouette as a popular phenomenon and meant a short shelf life for the physiognotype.
