Veil
From Inventions
Nome coined by the inventor referring to the material used for the instrument: "a very fine veil ".
Contents |
Inventor
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)
Historic Period
1435
Description
The veil is the first perspective instrument known to us. Leon Battista Alberti describes it in the section of De pictura dealing with the “circumscription” (II, 31), that is, the drawing, as a fundamental part of painting. The instrument, “which among my friends I call the intersection”, consists of a “very fine veil” stretched inside a frame and traversed by “coarser threads” forming an orthogonal grid: “which veil I set up between the eye and the object to be represented, so that the visual pyramid passes through the loose weave of the veil”. Apart from the practical function of the instrument (“and the veil will be of great aid to you in learning to paint”), Alberti conceives of the veil, or “intersection”, as the materialization of the concept of intersection of the visual pyramid, a geometric concept of primary importance placed at the basis of the new art of painting: “Painting is thus no other than intersection of the visual pyramid” (I, 12). In describing the instrument, Alberti also seems to recognize the operational limitation of the geometric rules that would urge later treatise writers to invent ever new mechanical solutions: “We do not ask for infinite labour from the painter, but we do expect a painting that appears markedly in relief and similar to the objects presented. I do not understand how anyone could ever achieve this without the help of the veil.” In the second edition of his treatise on perspective (Underweisung der Messung, Nuremberg 1538), Albrecht Dürer furnishes the first image of this instrument, which differs from Alberti’s description only in the variant of a viewer to fix the position of the viewing point. It is unclear whether Alberti provided for the use of a sight. The expression “having established certain terms, you will immediately find the true apex of the pyramid” seems to indicate a method for determining the viewing point similar to the one described later by Leonardo (B.N. 2038), which consisted of attaching to the veil two balls of wax corresponding to two clearly recognizable points on the object to be drawn. The position of the eye was established each time the two balls appeared superimposed on the selected points. The drawing was then done by transcribing on a sheet of drawing paper marked with a grid like the veil, all of the points and lines that appeared beyond the reference grid: “For just as you see the forehead in one parallel, the nose in the next, the cheeks in another, the chin in one below, and everything else in its particular place, so you can situate precisely all the features on the panel or wall which you have similarly divided into appropriate parallels.”
Bibliographical Resources
Alberti, Leon Battista, De pictura (1435), in Opere volgari, a cura di Cecil Grayson, Laterza, Bari 1973, III, pp. 7-107.
Camerota, Filippo, L'architettura curiosa: anamorfosi e meccanismi prospettici per la ricerca dello spazio obliquo, in “Saggi e documenti di storia dell'architettura”, n.11, 1987, pp. 79-111.
Kemp, Martin, The Science of Art. Optical Themes in Wester Art from Brunelelschi to Seurat, Yale University Press, New-Haven-London 1990, trad. it., La scienza dell'arte. Prospettiva e epercezione visiva da Brunelleschi a Seurat, Giunti, Firenze 1994, pp. 191-192.
Friess, Peter, Kunst und Maschine. 500 Jahre Maschinenlinien in Bild und Skulptur, Münich 1993, pp. 47-48, 58-59.
Field, J.V., The Invention of Infinity. Mathematics and Art in the Renaissance, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1997, p.122.
Author of the entry: Filippo Camerota
