Somehow, we have a tendency to see those we stereotype as 2D figures. They are, as far as we are concerned, flat figures, something on the order of what cave artists drew 20,000 years ago. No depth in the painting. No sense of 3D.
We are all familiar with perspective in art. Think of drawing straight railroad tracks running off into the imagined distance. The 3D effect occurs on a 2D surface, but the mind sees “distance” and a third dimension because of the artist’s use of a vanishing point, orthogonals (parallel lines), and a horizon line.
Maybe we should all become Filippo Brunelleschi, the fifteenth-century architect who drew the Baptistery of Florence and then checked his drawing for its ability to capture for the viewer the three dimensions of that building. In a little experiment, he drew the building, put a hole in his canvas, put a hole in a mirror, and looked through the back of the canvas and through the hole in the mirror to compare the mirror’s reflection of his drawing with the actual building he saw through the holes in the canvas and mirror.*
As we look at someone we have previously seen only in a flat 2D manner, let’s put the person on an imaginary vanishing point, something like the point that centers Christ at the table in Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper fresco. You know that you probably want others to see you in your complex three-dimensional perspective, noting all the nuances of your complex personality. Why shouldn’t you attempt to see others in the same way?
Time to start drawing people as 3D entities. Your view of them will become more realistic. After all, you don’t want to be stereotyped as one whose vision of others and the world around you is no more complex than that of an ancient cave artist, do you?
*
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=brunelleschi%27s+experiment&view=detailv2&qpvt=brunelleschi%27s+experiment&id=0B90426ECDAE82290A9C635D5165C49228B658F2&selectedIndex=5&ccid=5knWufqQ&simid=607998900232324786&thid=OIP.Me649d6b9fa90268c63af58e79f49237bH0&ajaxhist=0
We are all familiar with perspective in art. Think of drawing straight railroad tracks running off into the imagined distance. The 3D effect occurs on a 2D surface, but the mind sees “distance” and a third dimension because of the artist’s use of a vanishing point, orthogonals (parallel lines), and a horizon line.
Maybe we should all become Filippo Brunelleschi, the fifteenth-century architect who drew the Baptistery of Florence and then checked his drawing for its ability to capture for the viewer the three dimensions of that building. In a little experiment, he drew the building, put a hole in his canvas, put a hole in a mirror, and looked through the back of the canvas and through the hole in the mirror to compare the mirror’s reflection of his drawing with the actual building he saw through the holes in the canvas and mirror.*
As we look at someone we have previously seen only in a flat 2D manner, let’s put the person on an imaginary vanishing point, something like the point that centers Christ at the table in Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper fresco. You know that you probably want others to see you in your complex three-dimensional perspective, noting all the nuances of your complex personality. Why shouldn’t you attempt to see others in the same way?
Time to start drawing people as 3D entities. Your view of them will become more realistic. After all, you don’t want to be stereotyped as one whose vision of others and the world around you is no more complex than that of an ancient cave artist, do you?
*
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=brunelleschi%27s+experiment&view=detailv2&qpvt=brunelleschi%27s+experiment&id=0B90426ECDAE82290A9C635D5165C49228B658F2&selectedIndex=5&ccid=5knWufqQ&simid=607998900232324786&thid=OIP.Me649d6b9fa90268c63af58e79f49237bH0&ajaxhist=0
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