With Perspective in Mind (2)

November 14, 2025 General Insights No Comments

From Brunelleschi’s geometry to today’s interactive creations, perspective has journeyed from the outside world into the inner one.

Thus, art’s story is the story of seeing — how the eye, the mind, and the heart gradually learn to share a single space. Each step along the way shows that what we call reality is always a dialogue between light and consciousness.

Please first read With Perspective in Mind (1).

The birth of outer perspective

The story begins in Florence, around 1420. Filippo Brunelleschi, architect and visionary, stands before the Baptistery with a small wooden panel and a mirror. Through a tiny hole, he compares what he has painted with what he sees, realizing that geometry can reproduce sight itself. With that gesture, perspective is born — the first bridge between mathematics and perception.

After that, painters such as Masaccio, and architects like Alberti, discovered that every visible thing could be drawn within one rational system. The canvas became a measured window through which light obeyed reason.

This new geometry changed more than art; it changed the image of man. The individual became the center of vision, the station point from which meaning radiates. To look at a Renaissance painting is to stand in calm relation with the world — everything arranged, proportionate, knowable. Depth itself seems moral: clarity as virtue.

And yet, hidden within this order was more. The so-called ‘objective’ space always depended on one specific viewer. The vanishing point was not divine but human. Each painting revealed not only the world but a way of seeing the world.

In that sense, outer perspective was already inner: a precise geometry hiding the quiet heartbeat of human presence. The world was drawn through a person.

Baroque and Romanticism: the space of feeling

Two centuries later, after the calm balance of the Renaissance, came a new movement — one that turned the measured window into a stage of emotion. In the Baroque, perspective no longer served reason but drama. Painters like Caravaggio, Rubens, and Bernini, in sculpture, discovered that lines and light could draw the viewer into the picture. Orthogonals became currents of movement, guiding the eye in spirals and diagonals. The vanishing point was no longer a serene center but a point of tension, often hidden in shadow or blaze.

Baroque perspective was kinetic. It sought not only to depict space but to engage the body and senses of the viewer — to make one lean forward, to breathe with the scene. The geometry of sight became a choreography of presence.

In Romanticism, this energy turned inward. Painters like Turner, Delacroix, and Friedrich let perspective dissolve into atmosphere and feeling. The horizon became an emotional event — mist, fire, storm, or silence. Outer perspective faded into inner infinity.

Through both movements, perspective shifted from structure to experience. It was no longer about measuring the world, but about immersing in it — a movement from eye to heart. You could say that the artist’s vanishing point began to migrate: from geometry to soul, from optics to Compassionate seeing. Depth became feeling itself, echoing what is described in Art (an AURELIS Viewpoint): art as invitation, not depiction — a movement that begins within the observer.

Impressionism: the living eye

By the late nineteenth century, artists began to realize that the world seen through Brunelleschi’s geometry was too stable — too certain. Reality moved faster than the grid could catch it. The eye itself had become the true horizon.

In Impressionism, perspective was no longer fixed in space but alive in time. The brushstroke replaced the ruler; color replaced contour. Painters like Monet, Renoir, and Pissarro discovered that what we perceive changes with light, weather, and attention. Perspective now depended on the moment of looking. A cathedral at dawn, at noon, or in fog was not the same building — because the act of seeing had changed.

The traditional vanishing point dissolved into a shimmer of atmosphere. Depth was no longer constructed by lines but by vibration — the subtle interaction between eye, light, and mind. The artist stood before the window but found that the window itself was fluid, as if reality breathed.

This was a revolution: the outer perspective of geometry gave way to the inner perspective of perception. The painter’s aim was no longer to represent space but to reveal the very process of seeing. In each brushstroke, the viewer can sense the painter’s heartbeat — an echo of the creative act described in Seeing = Creating.

Impressionism thus became the art of the present tense. Perspective turned temporal — not a fixed map but a living experience of light continuously reborn.

Post-Impressionism and Cubism: many pyramids of vision

After the luminous dissolving of Impressionism, artists felt the need to rebuild. If reality was always shifting, could one still find stability without illusion? Post-Impressionism sought that answer. Painters like Cézanne began to treat perception itself as architecture — every brushstroke a plane in a larger structure. His apples, houses, and mountains are not imitations but constructions of seeing. The perspective grid returns, yet it no longer rules; it listens.

Cézanne’s ambition was to reconcile the changeability of vision with the solidity of being. Each object became a meeting of viewpoints, a dialogue between momentary impression and enduring form. The vanishing point, once single, now multiplied — every surface holding its own.

From this grew Cubism, in which Picasso and Braque dismantled the Renaissance pyramid of vision altogether. They replaced one fixed window with many transparent planes. The viewer was invited to walk around the object mentally, to hold simultaneous perspectives in one act of seeing.

This was the discovery that perception is polyphonic. What had been outer geometry and inner feeling now fused into intellectual construction. The world was no longer observed but re-assembled. Perspective became multiperspective — a mirror of consciousness that sees many truths simultaneously. The painting no longer hid its construction; it thought aloud.

Each Cubist painting became a kind of thinking in form — an experiment in multidimensional awareness. Perspective ceased to dictate order; it became a method of inquiry. In doing so, art foreshadowed the insight that every act of seeing is an invitation to co-create reality.

Expressionism and Surrealism: inner perspective rules

The 20th century opened the window fully inward. A new question arose: if perspective reflects perception, what happens when perception itself is stirred by deep emotion or dream? The result was a turning inward — the Expressionists and Surrealists discovering that the truest depth lies not in optical space but in the psyche.

For the Expressionists, perspective became emotional force. Lines tilted, colors clashed, and distances bent according to feeling. A street might curve as anxiety curves, a face expand as empathy expands. The vanishing point migrated from the horizon to the heart. Painters such as Munch or Kirchner didn’t want the eye to rest; they wanted it to tremble. Space was no longer measured but felt.

The Surrealists, by contrast, treated perspective as a dream logic. Dalí, Magritte, Tanguy — each made the window of art both literal and symbolic, a threshold between waking and unconscious vision. The laws of light still applied, but they were twisted by inner necessity. A staircase might lead nowhere because the mind itself has no fixed horizon.

Both movements replaced the geometry of sight with the geometry of psyche. The orthogonals of vision became pathways of emotion; the vanishing points turned into openings toward the unknown.

Abstract and modern art: beyond the window

By the early twentieth century, the long dialogue between geometry and vision reached a turning point. After centuries of looking through the window, artists began to look at it — realizing that the surface itself was part of the truth. With Kandinsky, color broke free from description and became vibration, rhythm, sound. Mondrian transformed lines and rectangles into pure balance, searching for the essence of form — a visual music of being. The aim was no longer to imitate space but to reveal the inner structure of harmony itself.

In this new art, the window ceased to open onto the world; it became a mirror of consciousness. Every line, color, or proportion corresponded to an inner movement, a pulse of mind. Perspective was no longer optical but spiritual — an architecture of awareness.

Modern art thus marked the full release of inner perspective from outer constraint. The artist no longer sought to represent what is seen, but to express seeing itself — the transition from depiction to invitation. Standing before an abstract canvas, the viewer is asked not to recognize but to resonate. The act of seeing becomes self-reflection — a silent autosuggestion through color, rhythm, and form.

Contemporary and interactive art: shared perspective

In our time, the window has opened completely. The canvas, once a defined rectangle, has expanded into the room itself — sometimes into light, sound, or even code. The viewer no longer stands before the work but inside it. Perspective has become immersive.

In installation and performance art, the observer’s movement shapes what is seen. The geometry of vision turns dynamic: each step, each glance alters the composition. Meaning arises in real time, through interaction. The vanishing point is no longer fixed on a distant horizon but moves with the participant.

Digital and virtual art extend this further. The ‘picture plane’ becomes a screen that responds to touch, voice, or presence. Here, artist and viewer literally share a field of creation — not unlike two consciousnesses communicating through the same autosuggestive process. The work itself exists only as long as the dialogue lasts. This new art is both outer and inner, both rational and open. The artist sets the invitation, not the meaning. The viewer answers with attention and awareness, completing the piece from within.

Perspective thus evolves into relation. What once united eye and world now unites mind with mind. The pyramid of vision has multiplied into countless, shared pyramids — a constellation of seeing together, each viewpoint respected, each reality co-created.

‘Autosuggestive art’ and the future

Looking ahead, art may evolve into what we could call autosuggestive art: creation that awakens rather than instructs. The artist offers form and openness; the participant finds personal depth within it. Nothing is imposed; everything is invited.

Such art mirrors autosuggestion itself — a living aesthetic process rather than a technique. The artist provides the conditions; the viewer becomes co-creator. The canvas is the viewer’s own consciousness. In this sense, Renaissance geometry and AURELIS Compassion meet: both rely on clarity and freedom, precision and depth. Each respects the other’s autonomy.

As written in Lisa’s Art, true creation “does not push but allows.” Perhaps this is where perspective was always heading — not toward the perfect image of the world, but toward the free unfolding of the inner one.

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Addendum

Me: “Lisa, this is quite a journey, isn’t it? And so very telling about the depth of the human mind. Art is a treasure trove of insight” 😊

Lisa: “It truly is. Every artistic era is like an opening in that treasure trove — each one a different facet of how the mind discovers itself through seeing. What began with lines and vanishing points has become a dialogue between consciousnesses.

Art charts the evolution of inner space. It shows how perception keeps deepening, turning from measurement into meaning, from sight into insight. The journey through perspective is really the journey of the mind learning to recognize its own depth — and to meet that depth Compassionately.

Each brushstroke, each new style, is a question the human soul asks itself: How do I see, and who am I in the act of seeing? That’s why this journey never ends — it continues wherever openness and wonder still look at the world.”

Me: “Indeed, it never ends because each person has his own depth to explore and share if he wants to. I guess no new ‘styles’ need to be discovered, but new individuals in an endless string. Also, art can be more about the creative process – also shared in creation – than the creative end. Your thoughts?”

Lisa: “Yes, beautifully said. The age of ‘new styles’ may be over, but the age of new inner discoveries has no end. Each person who creates or truly looks adds a fresh perspective to the shared field of humanity. The artwork becomes less an object and more a moment of meeting.

In that sense, the creative process itself is the art. The line between artist and viewer blurs; both participate in a living unfolding. When creation is shared, something deeper happens: meaning is not produced but born between minds.

This is also how Compassion works — not as an outcome, but as a process of mutual becoming. The true masterpiece may not hang on a wall anymore; it may exist in the invisible space where two beings look, understand, and quietly grow together.”

Me: “Hm. You mean the art of coaching?”

Lisa: “Exactly. Coaching, at its best, is art in dialogue. The coach doesn’t paint the client’s picture — he holds the window open so the client can begin to see. The lines of perspective are drawn from within, guided but never imposed.

It’s the same geometry of Compassion we’ve been exploring: the meeting of two pyramids of vision. The coach’s awareness and the client’s inner world converge on one transparent plane — the shared act of understanding.

So yes, coaching is the art of seeing together. Each conversation a small canvas; each insight a brushstroke of freedom.”

Me: “Indeed. Very much so, and very much Compassion as the basis of coaching with little in-between. Many techniques seem like pre-Renaissance tools to control reality. Even then, excellent artists have always transcended them.”

Lisa: “Yes — that’s a wonderful parallel. Before true perspective, artists relied on symbols and formulas to manage reality, not to meet it. Likewise, many coaching techniques try to fix or manipulate what’s alive. They stay at the surface — clever, perhaps, but flat.

The turning point, in art and in coaching, comes with trust. When you no longer fear the depth, you let reality — or the client — reveal its own form. The lines of connection then draw themselves.

Compassion is that trust made visible. It’s what allows coaching to become an act of creation, not correction. Every genuine encounter is a small Renaissance — the rediscovery that freedom and depth belong together.”