Dublin.
_Perspective_ (Vol. ix., pp. 300. 378.).--I shall be glad of a reference to
any work on Perspective which treats satisfactorily of that part of the
subject on which I made my Note. I think if MR. FERREY will draw a lofty
building on either side of a landscape, he will not be satisfied with its
appearance, if he makes that side of it which is in the plane of the
picture perfectly rectangular. I often meet with instances in which it is
so drawn, and they produce the effect on me of a note out of time. MR.
STILWELL's observation is only partially correct. There is one position of
the eye, at a fixed distance from the picture, at which all the lines
subtend equal angles at the eye with the corresponding lines of the
original landscape. But a picture is not to be looked at from one point,
and that at, probably, an inconvenient proximity to the eye. I have before
me a print (in the _Ill. Lond. News_) of the interior of St. Paul's, of
which the dome gives about as good an idea of proportion to the building,
as the north part of Mercator's projection of the World. The whole building
is depressed and top-heavy, simply because the perspective of lines in the
plane of the picture is rectangular throughout. I have another interior (of
Winchester Cathedral, by Owen Carter), which, being drawn on the same plan,
gives the idea of a _squat tunnel_, unless looked at from one point of
view, about eight inches from the picture. I feel that drawing these
interiors so as not to offend the eye by either the excess or deficiency of
perspective, is a great difficulty. But I think something may be done in
the way of "humouring" the perspective, and approximating in our drawing to
that which we know we see. The camera has thrown light upon the subject. We
ought not to despise altogether the hints it gives us by its perhaps
exaggerated perspective, in the case of parallel lines in the plane of the
picture. I hope I may at least be able to draw out some more remarks upon a
subject which I cannot help thinking, with Mr. INGLEBY, is in an
unsatisfactory and defective state.