Perspective and convention: the evolution of the artistic representation of space until the 18th century

Abstract

The aim of this article is to study the different strategies that have taken place -from the begin-ning of the human being’s plastic expression to the end of the 18th century-, for the graphic and pictorial representation of space, based on the main studies that provide a theoretical basis for its grounds. We evince the relevance of mathematics and optics for the development of spatial repre-sentation from antiquity despite the absence of a representation system regarded as objective until the Renaissance. On the basis of the studies of authors such as Euclids, Vitruvius Alhacen, Galileo, Descartes and Kircher among others, we have developed a critical-theoretical analysis of the causes, connotations, plastic possibilities and consequences of the different methodologies used for spatial representation, highlighting the artificialis perspective. In this way we revise the development of the existing relationships between the conceptualization of space and its representation as convention.