perspective

a mental view; the state of one’s ideas; vista: It looks good from my perspective.
Not to be confused with:prospective – expected; anticipated; future: prospective earnings

per·spec·tive

P0211000 (pər-spĕk′tĭv)n.1. a. A view or vista.b. A mental view or outlook: "It is useful occasionally to look at the past to gain a perspective on the present" (Fabian Linden).2. The appearance of objects in depth as perceived by normal binocular vision.3. a. An understanding of how aspects of a subject relate to each other and to the whole: a perspective of history; a need to view the problem in the proper perspective.b. Subjective evaluation of relative significance; a point of view: the perspective of the displaced homemaker.c. The ability to perceive things in their actual interrelations or comparative importance: tried to keep my perspective throughout the crisis.4. The technique of representing three-dimensional objects and depth relationships on a two-dimensional surface.adj. Of, relating to, seen, or represented in perspective.

[Middle English, science of optics (influenced by French perspective, perspective), from Medieval Latin perspectīva (ars), feminine of perspectīvus, optical, from perspectus, past participle of perspicere, to inspect : per-, per- + specere, to look; see spek- in Indo-European roots.]

per·spec′tiv·al adj.per·spec′tive·ly adv.

perspective

(pəˈspɛktɪv) n1. a way of regarding situations, facts, etc, and judging their relative importance2. the proper or accurate point of view or the ability to see it; objectivity: try to get some perspective on your troubles. 3. (Art Terms) the theory or art of suggesting three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface, in order to recreate the appearance and spatial relationships that objects or a scene in recession present to the eye4. the appearance of objects, buildings, etc, relative to each other, as determined by their distance from the viewer, or the effects of this distance on their appearance5. a view over some distance in space or time; vista; prospect6. (Art Terms) a picture showing perspective[C14: from Medieval Latin perspectīva ars the science of optics, from Latin perspicere to inspect carefully, from per- (intensive) + specere to behold] perˈspectively adv

per•spec•tive

(pərˈspɛk tɪv)

n. 1. a technique of depicting volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface. Compare linear perspective. 2. a picture employing this technique. 3. a visible scene, esp. one extending to a distance; vista. 4. the manner in which objects appear to the eye in respect to their relative positions and distance. 5. one's mental view of facts, ideas, etc., and their interrelationships: to have a clear perspective of a situation. 6. the ability to see all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship. 7. a mental view or prospect. adj. 8. of perspective, or represented according to its laws. Idioms: in perspective, in a true or meaningful proportion or relationship: Instead of overreacting, keep things in perspective. [1350–1400; Middle English < Medieval Latin perspectīva (ars) optical (science), perspectīvus optical = Latin perspect-, past participle s. of perspicere to look at closely (see per-, inspect) + -īvus -ive] per•spec′tiv•al, adj.

Perspective

(See also NIT-PICKING.)

by and large From an overall perspective; on the whole; in general; without going into details. The origin of this phrase and its current literal use are both nautical. It means to sail to the wind and slightly off it, or with the wind near the beam.

Thus you see the ship handles in fair weather and foul, by and large. (Samuel Sturmy, The Mariner’s Magazine, 1669)

By and large was used figuratively as early as 1706 in Edward Ward’s Wooden World Dissected. The jump from literal to figurative use is difficult to follow. This method of sailing is generally faster, a bit safer and easier (it offers less chance of being “taken aback” than sailing directly “by the wind”)—on the whole, better in the long run. It is the quality of being preferable ‘on the whole’ or ‘in general’ (even if a detailed analysis proved otherwise) that is transferred to nonnautical situations.

The virtue of sound broadcasting was that, by and large, the content mattered more than anything else. (Times, May 23, 1955)

in the long run In the end, when all is said and done; from the perspective of knowing the outcome or end result. This expression alludes to a long distance race in which runners who start slowly and conserve their energy often pull ahead and win the race, as in the story of the tortoise and the hare.

not see the forest for the trees To be so concerned with details as to lose a sense of the larger whole; to ignore the obvious, to miss the main point; to have tunnel vision. This expression appeared in print by the 16th century, at which time wood was used instead of forest. Today wood, woods, and forest are used interchangeably.

number the streaks of the tulip To be overly concerned with details and thereby miss the main point. This expression derives from Imlac’s dissertation on poetry in Johnson’s Rasselas, in which he contends that a poet should be concerned with the general rather than the particular. A related current expression is not see the forest for the trees.

over the long haul See the long haul, DURATION.

stumble at a straw To become bogged down in petty details; to suffer a setback because of a minor or trifling incident. This expression is derived from a proverb cited in Homilies (1547):

They were of so blind judgment, that they stumbled at a straw and leaped over a block.

The implication is that either as a result of misplaced priorities or poor judgment, a person may concentrate on the picayune while ignoring issues of greater significance.

He that strives to touch the stars Oft stumbles at a straw. (Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calendar, 1579)

trade off the orchard for an apple Not to see the forest for the trees, to be myopic; to be so concerned with details that one loses sight of the larger whole.

perspective

A method of representing three-dimensional volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface.

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	perspective - a way of regarding situations or topics etc.; "consider what follows from the positivist view"view, positionorientation - an integrated set of attitudes and beliefsbird's eye view, panoramic view - a situation or topic as if viewed from an altitude or distancefuturism - the position that the meaning of life should be sought in the futurecutting edge, forefront, vanguard - the position of greatest importance or advancement; the leading position in any movement or field; "the Cotswolds were once at the forefront of woollen manufacturing in England"; "the idea of motion was always to the forefront of his mind and central to his philosophy"paradigm - the generally accepted perspective of a particular discipline at a given time; "he framed the problem within the psychoanalytic paradigm"light - a particular perspective or aspect of a situation; "although he saw it in a different light, he still did not understand"sight - a range of mental vision; "in his sight she could do no wrong"Weltanschauung, world view - a comprehensive view of the world and human lifestraddle - a noncommittal or equivocal position
	2.	perspective - the appearance of things relative to one another as determined by their distance from the viewerlinear perspectiveappearance, visual aspect - outward or visible aspect of a person or thingvanishing point - the appearance of a point on the horizon at which parallel lines convergeapparent horizon, horizon, sensible horizon, visible horizon, skyline - the line at which the sky and Earth appear to meetpicture plane - the plane that is in the foreground of a drawing or painting; coextensive with but different from the objective surface of the work

perspective

noun1. outlook, attitude, context, angle, overview, way of looking, frame of reference, broad view The death of my mother gave me a new perspective on life.2. objectivity, proportion, relation, relativity, relative importance helping her to get her problems into perspective3. view, scene, prospect, outlook, panorama, vista stretching away along the perspective of a tree-lined, wide avenue

perspective

nounThat which is or can be seen:lookout, outlook, panorama, prospect, scene, sight, view, vista.

Translations

观点透视图透视画法

perspective

(pəˈspektiv) noun1. the way of drawing solid objects, natural scenes etc on a flat surface, so that they appear to have the correct shape, distance from each other etc. Early medieval paintings lacked perspective.透视画法2. a picture or view of something. I would like a clearer perspective of the situation.透视图in / out of perspective1. (of an object in a painting, photograph etc) having, or not having, the correct size, shape, distance etc in relation to the rest of the picture. These houses don't seem to be in perspective in your drawing. （绘画、图片或照片中的物体）符合透视法地／不按透视法的，成比例的／不成比例的 2. with, or without, a correct or sensible understanding of something's true importance. Try to get these problems in(to) perspective; Keep things in perspective. 正确地（不正确地）观察

perspective

→ 观点zhCN

perspective

perspective,

in art, any method employed to represent three-dimensional space on a flat surface or in relief sculpture. Although many periods in art showed some progressive diminution of objects seen in depth, linear perspective, in the modern sense, was probably first formulated in 15th-century Florence by the architects Brunelleschi and Alberti. Brunelleschi designed (c.1420) two panels depicting architectural views of Florence, in which he constructed a mathematically proportioned system of perspective. Alberti, in his De pittura (1435), harnessed the technique of perspective to the theory that painting is an imitation of reality. He viewed the picture plane as a window through which one looks at the visible world. Objects in the picture were to be systematically foreshortened as they receded into the distance. Orthogonal lines converged to a single vanishing point, which was to correspond to the fixed viewpoint of the spectator. Reflecting the growth of humanism, the spectator played a new role in art, as man was to determine the measurement of all things. The Italian artists who experimented with perspective, including Donatello, Masaccio, Uccello, and Piero della Francesca, sometimes diverged from the rules for a greater artistic effect. In general, however, the 15th-century Italian artists tended to work within a geometrical system, whereas the contemporary Flemish painters used more empirical means to achieve a convincing delineation of space. The technique of linear perspective had an immense influence on the development of Western art. In the 20th cent., however, its use has considerably declined, since many artists have rebelled against the conception of art as a mirror image of reality. Aerial or atmospheric perspective was developed primarily by Leonardo da Vinci. In general, it is based on the perception that contrasts of color and of light and dark appear greater, and contours more defined, in near objects than in far. Aerial perspective takes note of the recessive character of cool colors and the prominence of warm colors. In East Asian art, perspective effects were achieved by the atmospheric method, often incorporating zones of mist to separate near and far space.

Bibliography

See R. V. Cole, Perspective for Artists (1976); J. Cody, Atlas of Foreshortening (1984); M. Kubovy, The Psychology of Perspective and Renaissance Art (1988).

Perspective

a system for the representation of three-dimensional objects on a plane or other surface while taking into account the objects’ spatial structure and the distances of the objects’ various parts from the observer.

The concept of perspective arose in connection with the development of optics and various art forms, especially painting. Prehistoric man and the artists of the ancient East devised a number of techniques for rendering the relative positions of objects—for example, tiered composition and the contrasting combination of front and side views. They subordinated the objects to an arbitrary symbolic scheme rather than to a single viewer-related scale.

A tendency to unify space by means of perspective appeared in ancient Greek art in the sixth century B.C. Rules of perspective were first mentioned in the Greek mathematician Euclid’s treatise Optics (third century B.C.). The Roman architect Vitruvius ascribed the practical application of perspective in theatrical scenery to the time of Aeschylus (sixth and fifth centuries B.C.), and he also mentioned treatises, now lost, on perspective by Anaxagoras and Democritus. Examples of classical perspective painting are the frescoes of the Second Pompeian Style (c. 80 B.C. to c. A.D. 30). These frescoes have constructions with nearly central perspective—that is, one center of projection. Axial (“herringbone”) perspective was also widely used in antiquity; it implied several vanishing points situated on a vertical axis. Late classical and medieval art does not display a concern with a systematic treatment of perspective as a whole. Frequent use, however, was made of inverted perspective, which involved the enlargement of individual objects with distance and the synthesis of several viewpoints.

A consistent, mathematically grounded perspective system designed for a fixed, anthropocentric viewpoint appeared in the Italian quattrocento; important here were F. Brunelleschi, L. B. Alberti, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, and Paolo Uccello. The northern European masters—the brothers H. van Eyck and J. van Eyck and A. Dürer—also made a significant contribution to the practical and theoretical development of perspective. Leonardo da Vinci provided substantiation for the principles of aerial perspective—he investigated the atmosphere’s effect on the sharpness of outline of objects and on the color of objects at different distances.

In subsequent periods, the close connection between the scientific theory and artistic practice of perspective was lost—except for the masters of perspective painting. The theory of perspective as a whole became part of descriptive geometry; the works of the French mathematicians G. Desargues of the 17th century and G. Monge of the 18th century are particularly important in this connection. Perspective structure nonetheless remained an intrinsic part of the painted or sculptural image for those artists who aspired to an objective, scientifically grounded representation of their real spatial environment

The optical-mathematical approach to the problems of perspective was unknown to Oriental art. A number of empirical systems, however, were developed. An example is the parallel perspective typical of Chinese and Japanese painting; it can be regarded as a construction with an infinitely distant center of projection.

From the standpoint of geometry, perspective is a method of representing figures through the use of central projection. To obtain a perspective representation of an object, rays are extended from a chosen point in space (the center of perspective) to all the points of the object. The surface on which the representation is desired is placed in the path of the rays. The desired representation is obtained at the intersection of the rays and the surface. The perspective representation of an object on a plane is referred to as linear perspective; on the interior of a cylinder, as panoramic perspective; and on the interior of a sphere, as spherical perspective. Perspective representations of parallel lines intersect at vanishing points, and of parallel planes at vanishing lines.

Figure 1

The general method for constructing the perspectives of complex objects whose orthogonal projections are given on a vertical (see Figure 1) or inclined plane is based on projective geometry’s theorem of the correspondence of four points. Two mutually perpendicular planes are chosen on the object, and a rectangle is drawn in each plane. The perspectives of these rectangles are then constructed by making use of the laws of descriptive geometry. In Figure 1, the perspectives of the corresponding rectangles of the object are indicated by abed and adef. The points F₁, F₂ and F₃ —the points of intersection of the extensions of the rectangles’ sides—are the vanishing points; F₃ is an infinitely distant point. Lines are drawn between the points of intersection of the constructed rectangles’ diagonals and the vanishing points. The perspective of the midpoints of the rectangles’ sides is found at the intersection of these lines and the sides. In Figure 1, point g is the perspective of the midpoint G of side AB. To construct the perspectives of other points of the object, such as the point M on the line AB, an arbitrary point O is chosen and rays Oa, Ob, and Og are extended from it. Points A, B, G, and M are transferred from the orthogonal drawing to a separate strip of paper, and this paper is placed on the drawing in such a way that A, B, and G are on the rays Oa, Ob, and Og. The perspective (point m) of point M is obtained by projecting M on the line ab along the ray from O. Perspectives on an inclined plane are constructed in an analogous way.

Of great importance in the theory of linear perspective is the study of the distortions that arise in the peripheral parts of a picture as a result of the considerable deviations of the projected rays from a position perpendicular to the plane in which the representation is constructed.

REFERENCES

Rynin, N. A. Nachertatel’naia geometriia: Perspektiva. Petrograd, 1918.
Glagolev, N. A. Nachertatel’naia geometriia, 3rd ed. Moscow, 1953.
Baryshnikov, A. P. Perspektiva, 4th ed. Moscow, 1955.
Kuznetsov, N. S. Nachertatel’naia geometriia. Moscow, 1969.
Panofsky, E. “Die Perspektive als ‘symbolische Form.’” In Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg, 1924-25. Leipzig-Berlin, 1927. Pages 258-330.
Gioseffi, D. Perspectiva artificialis.… [Trieste] 1957.
White, J. Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space, 2nd ed. London, 1967.

perspective

[pər′spek·tiv] (graphic arts) The technique representing a figure or the space relationships of natural objects, on either a plane or curved surface, by means of projecting lines emanating from a single point, which may be infinity.

perspective

1. The technique of representing solid objects upon a flat surface. 2. A picture or drawing employing this technique.

perspective

Art1. the theory or art of suggesting three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface, in order to recreate the appearance and spatial relationships that objects or a scene in recession present to the eye 2. a picture showing perspective

perspective

(games)In computer games, the virtual position from whichthe human player views the playing area. There are threedifferent perspectives: first person, second person, and thirdperson.

First person perspective: Viewing the world through the eyesof the primary character in three dimensions. e.g. Doom,Quake.

Second person perspective: Viewing the game through aspectator's eyes, in two or three dimensions. Depending onthe game, the main character is always in view. e.g. SuperMario Bros., Tomb Raider.

Third person perspective: a point of view which is independentof where characters or playing units are. The gaming world isviewed much as a satellite would view a battlefield.E.g. Warcraft, Command & Conquer.

perspective

perspective

per·spec·tive

perspective

per•spec•tive

Perspective

perspective

perspective

perspective

perspective

perspective

perspective

put (something) in(to) perspective

get (something) in(to) perspective

get (something) out of perspective

put (something) out of perspective

in perspective

perspective on (something)

from (one's) perspective

out of perspective

be in perspective

have (something) in perspective

from my perspective

*in perspective

*perspective on something

in (or out of) perspective

get, put, etc. something in/out of perˈspective

perspective

perspective,

Bibliography

Perspective

REFERENCES

perspective

perspective

perspective

perspective

perspective

perspective

perspective

perspective

Synonyms for perspective

noun outlook

Synonyms

noun objectivity

Synonyms

noun view

Synonyms

Synonyms for perspective

noun that which is or can be seen

Synonyms

Synonyms for perspective

noun a way of regarding situations or topics etc.

Synonyms

Related Words

noun the appearance of things relative to one another as determined by their distance from the viewer

Synonyms

Related Words