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Brunelleschi and his visual experiment

    He was drilling a small hole in the panel. For the past few weeks he had painted the panel with utmost concentration. The painting was of the Florence Baptistry and its surrounding, as it looked when seen from the Cathedral. There was something special in this painting when compared to all other paintings of that time. 

Once done, he set the panel to face the view that inspired it. Now he stood behind the panel and leaned forward to peep through the hole. For an onlooker, all this might have looked crazy, or even worse he or she would have accused this painter of plotting something shady.

As he was peeping through the hole, Brunelleschi picks up a mirror and holds the mirror at arm's length, in front of the panel. Now he was able to see the reflection of the painting in the mirror. As he continued to view through the hole, he moved the mirror in and out of his line of sight. It was now clear that he was trying to compare his painting to the real Baptistery.

But, can't one just compare by keeping the view and the painting side by side? Yes, but Brunelleschi was up to something more. Whenever he saw a painting, he always felt that something is off when compared to the real object that painting was inspired by. This was especially true for long shot views that comprised of buildings, trees, clouds, people and so on. He was trying to understand how and why things look different and appear to be of different shape when viewed from a distance, and from different angles.

 


Spurred by his desire to draw paintings that looked realistic, he was trying to master the technique of rendering a three-dimensional view onto a two-dimensional surface.Now as he saw the reflection of the painting in the mirror and the real view of the Baptistery, he was pleasantly surprised and found it hard to contain his joy.

He then ran to his friend Donatello and asked him to immediately go with him to the Cathedral. Puzzled by such a demand at an early hour of the day, and the hard-pressed joy behind his face, Donatello asked what was the matter. But Brunelleschi wasn't ready to give even a clue. He wanted his friend to see it first hand. Donatello could sense that he was about to witness something extra-ordinary and ran with his friend towards the Cathedral.

Upon reaching the top of the Cathedral, Brunelleschi made his friend do the same experiment he had done less than an hour ago. As he peeped through the hole, while the mirror was moved in and out of sight, Donatello was awestruck! His friend had painted the first three dimensional painting, which was strikingly similar to the real view!

From here, Brunelleschi's his system of linear perspective went on to revolutionize art, and he himself became an inspiration for many great artists of Renaissance, including Leonardo da Vinci.

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