Chapter 10 - Perspectives on Perspective

Summary

Far from a mere technique of three-dimensional spatial representation, perspective has become a dominant metaphor for objectivity, rationalism, mastery, and domination. Conversely, to lack perspective, as in Islamic art, suggests an absence or ineptitude in these qualities often Chapter 10 examines the roots of European perspectivalism from the Italian Renaissance in its relationship with knowledge from Islamic discourses; interaction with European religious doctrines; and the rise and normalization of colonialism. It argues that, far from presaging a modern, secular, and supposedly objective way of looking, discussions of perspective in the seventeenth century were deeply engaged with proofs of the existence of God. This limited the potential of multi-perspectivalism to enable