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Anamorphosis through Descartes or Perspective Gone Awry*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Lyle Massey
Lyle Massey*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
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Extract

The systems of perspective first produced during the fifteenth century and subsequently treated by mathematicians and artists in later centuries have been exhaustively discussed and analyzed by art historians. While many have focused on the technique's geometric and scientific history, beginning with Panofsky and his remarkable treatment of perspeaive as symbolic form in 1927, a number of art historians have attempted to analyze the metaphorical and allegorical aspects of perspective. Although varying greatly in tone and focus, there is one assumption that links all of these accounts. It is generally taken for granted that perspective somehow stands paradigmatically for Descartes's rationalism — for his search for ontological and epistemological certainty.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , Winter 1997 , pp. 1148 - 1189
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1997

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Footnotes

*

This article would not be possible without the close readings, suggestions, critiques, and general support offered by Mario Biagioli, Paula Findlen, Carlo Pedretti, Donald Preziosi, Kenneth Reinhard, Keith Topper, and Cecile Whiting.

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