Perspectival parody in Hogarth's Satire on false perspective (original) (raw)
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This article is a comparison between the works of Ann Radcliffe and Caspar David Friedrich based on the analysis of the relationship that is established between the observer and the landscape, as well as on the ways of representing this relationship, namely by analysing the selected perspectives and framings. In this paper, we focus on compositional and organizational strategies of landscape, and also on thematology, as it represents an inescapable way of approaching both these works. Taking place in a very particular context in the histories of literature and painting, the meeting between observer and landscape is one of the most characteristic aspects of the works of Ann Radcliffe and Caspar David Friedrich. In fact, the increasing interest of the individual in landscape that took place by the ending of the 18 th century and during the 19 th century had a decisive influence over the course taken by the artistic creation, both in literature and in painting. The evolution of the pictorial representation towards a landscape painting, 1 and of literature towards the novel, is a consequence of the public's/reader's acceptance of this kind of representation. This diverted the artistic creation from the classical imposition of unity. In this period, the public begins to appreciate a new kind of representation, less centred in the actions of the characters, thus opening a path for description in literature and for landscape in painting – at the turn of the century, '"Landscape" was the magical word', as we are told in Caspar David Friedrich: His Life and Work (p. 22). As the action of the character is no longer the central issue of the work, the role of nature in the construction of the work's meaning and of the observer's figure can now be emphasised. In their works, Ann Radcliffe and Caspar David Friedrich do not represent an individual or a setting but the way the individual experiences landscape. Being the only object of representation in a picture, and meaningful in itself, landscape becomes the central element of the pictorial text and therefore excuses the presence of a human element, at least apparently. A similar phenomenon occurs in literature: descriptive passages become numerous and are central in the structure of the gothic novel. In The Mysteries of Udolpho, for instance, the vast number of descriptions always exists in close relation to the development of the narration. By looking at the placement of the descriptive excerpts in this work, we see that description is an essential element of the narrating process. Consequently, description emerges invariably in the moments of great reflection and
There are only two perspectives among the extant drawings of Juan de Herrera (1533–1597), who succeeded Juan Bautista de Toledo as architect of the Escorial. Both belong to the collection of engravings of that building made in 1589, after construction had already been completed. One is a bird’s eye view showing the exterior of the building; the other is an interior perspective of the main altar. Although both drawings appear to be rigorous, the external perspective shows a cupola with an unrealistically high tambour, dome and lantern. This paper analyzes both of these, along with a third, a bird’s eye view drawing of the building site by an unknown artist, conserved at Hatfield House (England), contextualizing them within the Escorial’s construction process and Herrera’s knowledge of perspective. The analysis argues that the elongated representation of the cupola was not an error caused by the difficulty of constructing a rigorous perspective or representing curve forms but was instead a deliberate choice made by the architect to make the cupola appear taller and slimmer.
(1643-1713), an antiquary and writer, in his Country Conversations published in 1694 gives an account of a fictitious visie which cercain Lisander, accompanied by Julio and Micis, paid co a gencleman named Eugenius who, after living ac che courc, had recencly retired to a countryside where he had builc "afi:er che ltalian fashion ... one of the Neatesc Houses in chat Country for true and Regular Architecture, and Curious Contrivance". 1 Eugenius, we learn, "had always a Greac fancy for che Arc of Drawing, and had been taughc someching of ie when young, which he had excremely improved by the Inscruccions of che best Masters ac Rome" during his Grand Tour. "In his !acer cimes of Leasure he used che Pencil ofi:en, which he call'd his most pleasing Diversion, and his !die Hours more Honescly imploy'd chan in chat which some call business". Eugenius was not only che practicing painter whose "Genius inclined ... most to Landskip-Painting", buc also a !over of antiquicies. He even preserved, in his park, che ruin of che old monastery which he regarded as beauciful and venerable like che
The Spatiality of Thought in To the Lighthouse
In this essay, depictive aspects of meaning, thinking, and concepts, as employed in philosophy, psychology and neurology, are related to an analysis of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. In the interpretation of this novel, the notion of spatial thinking is developed in the context of visuality and rhythm.