Renaissance Linear Perspective Painting

Timeline

1. c. 1413–1415Florence · TuscanyFilippo Brunelleschi used comparative experiments with a mirror and painting panel to demonstrate that the depth and proportions of architectural space could be reproduced with a geometric vanishing point, laying the practical foundation for linear perspective.
2. 1435Florence · TuscanyLeon Battista Alberti completed the Latin treatise On Painting, systematically expounding vanishing points, the visual cone, and rules of pictorial composition, transforming perspective from an artisan's secret technique into a teachable humanist theory of art.
3. c. 1425–1428Santa Maria Novella, Florence · FlorenceMasaccio constructed the vaulted space of the Holy Trinity fresco with a single vanishing point, achieving a high degree of unity between figure scale and architectural perspective, making it a model work of Renaissance perspective painting.
4. 1450–1500Italian Peninsula · ItalyPerspective techniques spread from Florentine workshops and humanist and patron networks to Venice, Rome, and elsewhere, and traveled north through prints and manuscripts, becoming the fundamental compositional language of modern Western painting.