ABSTRACT
When Braque would have paintcrs 'treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere and the cone, everything in proper perspective, so that each side of the object or plane tends towards a eentral point', he was by no means advoeating areturn to the Albertian formula, but a new perspective using inter-related planes to show, simultaneously, scvcral different aspeets of an objeet, none ofwhich has priority. His 'eentral point' is neither a viewpoint nor a vanishing point. He thought the old mIes of perspective 'a ghastly mistake', beeanse they caused 'objects in the picture to disappear away from the bcholder instead ofbringing them within his reach as paintings shonld' ; a fair objection, for however convincingly a perspective picture may simnlate depth beyond the surface, the most skilful of trompe-/'ocH produces little or no illusion ofprojection outward from it. He does aim to give images tangible, solid form, but not by enclosing them in the old space-box. He does not aim to reduce the dimensions to two, as a nat pattern, but to increase them to four by adding a time or motion dimension. To grasp the true nature of spaee, the observer must feel that he moves round and into the subjeet matter. as the artist did, This 'neo-plastic' approach has much to do with new eoncepts of architecture, though there has been no corresponding revolution in architectural perspective, in which all that is observable is a lesser dependence on central construction, more readiness to take an oblique view, and to master the more demanding geometry of direci projection from a vicwpoint not chosen for its convenience; a preference for the formal dia gram rather than the naturalistic piciure.
