“Drawing is based upon perspective, which is nothing else than a thorough knowledge of the function of the eye.”

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective
Context: Drawing is based upon perspective, which is nothing else than a thorough knowledge of the function of the eye. And this function simply consists in receiving in a pyramid the forms and colours of all the objects placed before it. I say in a pyramid, because there is no object so small that it will not be larger than the spot where these pyramids are received into the eye. Therefore, if you extend the lines from the edges of each body as they converge you will bring them to a single point, and necessarily the said lines must form a pyramid.

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Leonardo Da Vinci 363
Italian Renaissance polymath 1452–1519

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