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"Putting things into Perspective" Paleo Uccello Perspective Study of a Chalice circa. 1450 Pen on Paper, 29 x 24 .5 cm, Uffizzi Gallery, Florence The early Renniassance master Paolo Uccello created this "wireframe" perspective drawing around 1450. It predates the introduction of the Macintosh by 550 years.

The Italian master, Paolo Uccello, epitomizes the rebirth of pictorial space that took place during the Renaissance through the use of perspective illusionism. Uccello and his fellows incorporated the math of perspective vanishing points to render the third dimension into their art works.

"[Uccello] would remain the long night in his study to work out the vanishing points of his perspective, and when summoned to his bed by his wife replied in the celebrated words: 'How fair a thing is this perspective.' Being endowed be nature with a sophistical and subtle disposition, he took pleasure in nothing save in investigating difficult and impossible questions of perspective . . . When engaged in these matters, Paolo would remain alone in his house almost like a hermit, with hardly any intercourse, for weeks and months, not allowing himself to be seen . . . By using up his time on these fancies he remained more poor than famous during his lifetime." Vasari, Lives of Artists

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