Hi everyone and welcome back to Exploring Art, this is Alessandro. Today I am gonna be talking about aerial perspective (also called atmospheric perspective). Yes, “atmospheric” like weather. We are going to get there soon, but first let me give you a definition like a pro.
It is a technique used to create a sense of depth and distance in paintings. So, as you can imagine, it is fundamental to reach a higher level of realism.
The concept behind the technique is actually simple: in real life objects in the distance appear to be less distinct and the colors become less saturated and shift toward the background color, which is usually bluish. That’s because air has a thickness.
Artists use this idea to create a sense of depth and distance in their works, making objects in the foreground appear more distinct and vivid, while those in the background appear lighter, less detailed and kind of bluer.
Even if this concept was evident already before, it’s during Renaissance that artists were really trying to achieve realism and create a sense of three-dimensionality and space. And if for the indoor scenes linear perspective was perfect to reach that, outdoor the solution was to adopt aerial perspective.
And the artist who interpreted better that was, not by chance, one of the best observers of nature: Leonardo da Vinci. We learnt about that in both Mona Lisa and the Virgin of the rocks posts, check this link if you missed them.
As you can see, it’s a matter of shades from lighter and cooler colors used for distant objects and brighter and warmer colors used for those that are closer.
The result is a realistic illusion.
