Summary The 17th century saw an intensive study of perspective and its rules, with developments particularly in France through such men as G. Desargues, A. Bosse, J. Dubreuil and J. F. Niceron. One may be sure that an artist such as Claude Lorrain was relatively uninterested in these speculations and in many respects disregarded the established rules in order to achieve the effects he was after. E. Panofsky and J. White have shown that early Renaissance perspective is founded on the classical theory of a spherical field of vision. In their examples the perspective lines converge on to a vertical line‐a result of their having concentrated on tall, narrow pictures of interiors. Applying the same procedure to a broad landscape gives a horizontal line. In theory, of course, there is no connection between the vertical and the near at hand, between the horizontal and the distant. Psychologically, however, there are good reasons why an artist might modify his presentation of reality along these lines. In Claude's drawn studies the foreground merges more or less imperceptibly into the background, as it would if one looked at the scene from low down, for instance sitting on the ground. Also of special interest is the perspective in the paintings by Claude that contain architectonic elements, above all the harbour scenes from his earlier works (1633–48). These reveal a direct development in four stages. The first is evident in a group of paintings comprising L.V. 5, 10, 19, 14 (Louvre). Here the lines of the orthogonal facades meet at a point on the opposite side of the centre of the picture; thus in a symmetric composition they would meet on a vertical line. The perspective is based on the principles for a scene near at hand. In three compositions from 1637–39—L.V. 14 (Northumberland), 28 and 43—there is a modification of the technique in that these principles are used only for the area in the foreground. In L.V. 54 (1642) and 80 Claude produces a regular, uniform spatial composition, while in the fourth stage—L.V. 63 (1642), 96 and 114—he has the orthogonals meet on a horizontal line, thereby achieving an effect of distance. While these observations do no more than confirm an existing opinion on Claude's development as an artist, it is interesting to note the extremely close agreement between this progression in perspective and the development in content and atmosphere from an idyllic attitude to one of greater and greater serenity. In his later painting Claude develops his perspective technique along the same lines, working as it were through a telescopic lens—enlarging only a part of a distant scene to produce a dreamlike quality and a feeling of detachment from the motif.
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