Perspectives

[Midnight_Carnival]

Spoiler:

I'm aware that this thread probalby won't be the most intersting one up for discussion.
I'm doing it as a matter of principle, because there was someone on another thread who objected to derailment in a way I respected. Opening this thread I hoped would allow the discussion to continue unhindered, and if there was value in the distraction, allow that to develop into a more complete topic, if not demonstrate that the diversion was irelevant.

Ok, perspectives:
Perspective is about where you stand and what you see from there. For a perspective to be either right or wrong, to me is very strange. If somebody tell me "no, don't stand there, you have to be over here, ok, wait, a little lower, lower, ok, now close one eye..." you will excuse me if I suspect that the "true picture" being revealed is a little, well interesting?

Perspective can be used as a tool for creating the illusion of 3D in a 2D artwork - this does not mean that you can't throw all these 'rules' out of the window when you sit down to draw something, it just means that trying to create the illusion of 3D is not your priority. I would suspect that someone trying to apply these 'rules' to other people's artwork would be a little misguided, unless they were paid to teach persepctive to an art student.

For me, as many perspectives as possible are useful - others may find this irritating - there are some perspectives which may be irrelevant to a particular discussion, granted, but there can not be a 'right' perspective, not even a 'most useful' perspective.
The problem is that when it comes to seeing things clearly, we have to consider the possiblity that from where we stand no one can see anything well enough to get an idea of anything at all.

But regarding the first picture posted on the other topic, good one.
and the second picture... since the subject matter is religious it makes things a little more interesting - and I don't only mean that you are alowed to make "mistakes" when depicting a religious figure because you can shout "heresy" if anyone points them out. You will see in many/most religious iconography from cultures around the world that the sacred or divine are depicted differently to the average guy on the street, frequenlty "perspective" is thrown out the window on purpose (we assume). The effect of the inconsistent foreshortening effects applied to the figure depicted is that although furhtest from the viewer, the head and face in particular are painted as if looming over the viewer - this creates the illusion that this figure is somehow vastly different from the others in the painting or perhaps that the rules of physics do not apply to the figure?

-thank you.

[Blarumyrran]

This is just a shallow language problem. You speak as if, if someone says the "value of a thing" without clear indication of what is the purpose towards which the value is measured, then this purpose should be understood to be the purpose towards which the thing is more valuable than towards any other purpose? I think that's usually stupid, I rather think this should usually prompt the reader to find the purpose from context - from neighboring sentences and forum posts and such, reconstructing the trail of thought of the writer.

[Midnight_Carnival]

This is just a shallow language problem. You speak as if, if someone says the "value of a thing" without clear indication of what is the purpose towards which the value is measured, then this purpose should be understood to be the purpose towards which the thing is more valuable than towards any other purpose? I think that's usually stupid, I rather think this should usually prompt the reader to find the purpose from context - from neighboring sentences and forum posts and such, reconstructing the trail of thought of the writer.

I agree on the language problem part; how could I not when we consider that any discussion of "value of a thing", but as ever you intruge and delight me so please elaborate.

Further, I was just sharing something with a disbeloved which I think may have relevence to this discussion:

In terms of the world and people though, I shall share this comforting thought - these people who wish to intrude and cause discomfort do so to make themselves significant in the lives of those around them - seldom in a "positive" sense - they do this to momentarilly escape the inevitibility of themeselves dying alone and not being cared about, missed or even remembered. From the persepctive of the soil, they are simply wasting the nutrients loaned to them - they will achieve nothing in their lives and change nothing - the best thing they could do is to die and allow the nutients their bodies constitute to be put to a better use. From the perspective of the soil, people are minor itches which disappear before they can be scratched, not even enough to wake the sleeper. I invite you to look at these silly little word and feeling castles people build from the perspective of the soil - what have they grown, what have they changed, what have they - really- destroyed or poisoned? in the end, they are no more than lonely little people covering their eyes and stumbling from one near death to another. Entirely pitiful.

-see, no XXX rated content!
hope this does not derail the richeous and entierely deserved whalloping you were about to deliver