"Piero's perspective. Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca plotted perspective so meticulously and consistently that he was able to make the divine, with its miraculous lack of optical logic, shine out in contrast to the rest of the picture.
For many artists, perspective assumed the status of a convenient technique -- a routine geometrical-cum-optical trick to establish the illusion of space behind the surface of a picture. But for a minority of theoretically inclined artists it acted as a research tool, through which the picture became an experimental field for the geometrical construction of illusions emulating the optical force of real space." (M. Kemp, 1997 Nature 390:128)
"I quote from Martin Kemp's article on The Flagellation by the artist Piero della Francesca:
'Getting things right was integral to his contract with God's design of nature'.
Unfortunately, Nature seems to have let its Designer down and to have broken the contract,
by reproducing the picture the wrong way around." (P.B. Soul, 1997 Nature 390:331)
(the image reproduced above is oriented correctly, if we are to believe Soul)
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(revised Nov. 14, 2002)