Perspectives on Perspective!

Comparison of Perspectives

Picture 1: http://www.bigboxdetox.com/one-point-perspective

One Point Perspective by Leonid Afremov

Picture 2: http://julieanimation.blogspot.hk/2010/12/3-point-perspective-4-point-perspective.html

Four Point Perspective by Julie Zhao

The Comparison:

The first picture is a painting. The second is an inked drawing. But that hardly matters here.
The reason I picked these two to compare is not because of their difference in media, or their country of origin (The first one is by Leonid Afremov who is Russian-Isreali, and the second one is by Julie Zhao who is Chinese) but actually with their use of perspective.

Afremov uses one point perspective, where he uses Linear perspective to create the illusion of the 3D depth, ie. real life, on a 2D surface, ie. the canvas. Linear Perspective is where the artist uses basic lines that start from the edges of the page/canvas/work area and they all reach in towards one or more points on the page, which are called vanishing points. With this, the artist draws along with those lines and adjusts the sizes of their subjects accordingly to create the illusion of correctly proportional depth and space. Afremov here is a fan of using Single-Point perspective, where his lines all reach into just one point.
He also uses Aerial perspective. This is a different method of creating the illusion of a 3D painting. But it has nothing to do with proportion. Aerial perspective refers to colors, and to implement this into their works artists color objects that are further away with a paler palette than objects that are closer. Objects that are further away in reality tend to blend a little with the color of the atmosphere behind it. Say someone painted a scene of a village shrouded in fog. Houses and people who are closer are clearly visible and may even have a variety of vibrant colors. Houses and people who are further away become paler and paler as they go further, still having color but not as vibrant or lively. And finally those that are furthest away may still be seen with lines, but their colors will almost or completely match the color of the fog in the background, as nothing behind the fog can be seen at all. That’s how Aerial perspective works, and Afremov uses this technique too, although much more subtly than fog.

Zhao, however, uses a different method. She may not use color (which also means she does not use Aerial perspective), but her inked works still carry the same level of eye catching skill when it comes to creating depth on paper. She, like Afremov, uses Linear perspective, but she uses more than one point.
With her lines still visible in the drawing above, one can see that she used three vanishing points instead of the standard one. With this, she’s pushed her work onto a new level of depth and space, because now we, the audience, see the subject in her drawings from three different angles, all in one view. She’s also used four and five vanishing points too.  To use at least four vanishing points makes your drawing take the shape of a view from an orb. And that takes serious skill to draw.