Ragione e intuizione nell’illusionismo prospettico

The goal of this research is the identification of the tools available to achieve a convincing effect of perspective illusionism in artworks between the XVth and XVIIth century. We need to understand the psychological and physiological mechanisms that oversee the human visual perception; then we will identify the geometric tools that can reproduce and control these mechanisms in artwork. In particular we will study three different aspects: foreshortening of apparent dimensions, linear perspective and aerial perspective. Once we identified these instruments we will propose a set of experimental tests to evaluate the illusory perspective effect and, finally, we will apply this methodology to the case study of the Saint Ignazio’s Glory painted by Andrea Pozzo. The results of these tests showed that the Pozzo’s artwork is characterized by a high consistency of all the visual cues provided to the viewer.