The Origin of Perspective Author:Hubert Damisch "Damisch's achievement lies in having called into question the art-historical methodologies that still dominate work in this field. His willingness to reconsider the epistemological basis of the discipline gives this book its special relevance and value for the circumstances in which we find ourselves today." -- Keith Moxey, Artforum "Was... more » perspective an approximation to 'normal' perception of space, evolved in the fourteenth century, codified by Alberti, and rendered obsolete by Cézanne -- or is it a 'symbolic form,' one way of discoursing about space, which conditions perception, rather than merely describe it? Damisch brings not only his vast learning but also great subtlety to bear on this question. It is a virtuoso performance of a book that will be treasured and read repeatedly by anyone interested in the art of our own time, as well as in its history." -- Joseph Rykwert, Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture, university of Pennsylvania. In part a response to Panofsky's Perspective as Symbolic Form, The Origin of Perspective is much more. In France it is considered one of the most important works of art history to have appeared in the last twenty years. With the exception of Michel Foucault's analysis of Las Meninas, it is perhaps the first time a structuralist method such as the one developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss in The Way of the Masks has been thoroughly and convincingly applied to Western art. The task Damisch has set for himself is to refute both the positivist critics, whose approach makes up the bulk of perspective studies and is based on a complete repression of Panofsky's early work, and the current pseudo-avant-gardist position (whether in the field of cinema studies or in literary criticism), which tends to disregard facts and theoretical analysis. Damisch argues that if a theoretical analysis of perspective is possible, using all the tools of structuralist semiotics, it is only possible in the context of a close look at its appearance in history, beginning with the details of the "invention" of perspective.« less