A perspective machine is an
optical instrument
An optical instrument is a device that processes light waves (or photons), either to enhance an image for viewing or to analyze and determine their characteristic properties. Common examples include periscopes, microscopes, telescopes, and camera ...
designed to help artists create
perspective drawings. The earliest machines were built centuries ago when the theory of perspective was being worked out, and modern versions are still in use.
Timeline
* 1510:
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
's ''Draftsman drawing an armillary sphere'' shows an early form of perspective machine in use.
* 1525:
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...
, in his illustration ''Man drawing a lute'', shows an artist using a perspective machine to create a drawing. The machine consists of a wooden frame with a taut string passing through it to represent the viewer's line of sight. Dürer built his second model of such a machine in the same year.
* c.1765: Scottish engineer
James Watt
James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was f ...
designs a machine based on an
easel
An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it, at an angle of about 20° to the vertical. In particular, painters traditionally use an easel to support a painting while they work on it, normally stan ...
, with a
pantograph
A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a Linkage (mechanical), mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a se ...
mechanism allowing the artist to trace an object using a sight arm and transfer the movement of the sight to a pen drawing on paper. Watt stated that his machine was based on an invention by a Mr Hurst, who lived in India.
* 1763: Philosopher
Thomas Reid
Thomas Reid (; 7 May (Julian calendar, O.S. 26 April) 1710 – 7 October 1796) was a religiously trained Scotland, Scottish philosophy, philosopher best known for his philosophical method, his #Thomas_Reid's_theory_of_common_sense, theory of ...
uses a machine to investigate his theory of perception.
* 1825: English inventor
Francis Ronalds
Sir Francis Ronalds Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (21 February 17888 August 1873) was an English scientist and inventor, and arguably the first History of electrical engineering, electrical engineer. He was knighted for creating the first wo ...
patents two perspective tracing machines. One generated an accurate drawing of an object or scene in nature and the other created a perspective view of an object from drawings of the plan and elevations. Ronalds manufactured the machines and sold several hundreds of them.
References
{{reflist
External links
DrawingMachines.org- pictorial archive of mechanical drawing aids
Optical instruments