Field of Vision: “The entire area that a person or animal is able to see when their

eyes are fixed in one position.” (1)

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Line of Sight: “A straight line along which an observer has unobstructed vision.” (2)

 

The sense of sight within both humans and animals is the result of complex interactions between light, our eyes, and our brains. We are able to observe landscapes, natural wonders, and everyday objects around us because light is reflected into our eyes, where signals are sent to our brain so we can decipher visual information. For centuries, scientists, mathematicians, and artists alike have investigated how vision works, and their findings have influenced the ways in which humans have attempted to translate what is seen in the real world into two-dimensional visual forms.

 

Historical records from as far back as the fifteenth-century show dedicated efforts to understand and develop repeatable “rules” for how to recreate depth and space within a picture plane, in order to effectively simulate reality through a painting or drawing. One of the primary developments to come out of these efforts is linear perspective, which is largely credited to the Italian Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi in the year 1415. (3) The concepts were later documented in 1435 by architect and writer Leon Battista Alberti in what is considered the first written account on the topic, titled Della Pittura (On Painting) (4). As a result of these findings, architects and painters learned how to use the rules of linear perspective to create realistic architectural renderings, as well as how to depict landscapes and other scenery with simulated depth. These visual techniques have been passed on for centuries, and we continue to see evidence of them in landscape art today.

 

Featuring seventeen artworks from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts collection, the exhibition Fields of Vision, Lines of Sight highlights Alberta’s vast prairie landscapes rendered two dimensionally by twelve artists: Margareet Beekman, Ken Christopher, Hilda Davis, Dee Parsons De Wit, Primrose Diakow, Greg Jones, RFM McInnis, E. Annette Nieukerk, Stanford Perrott, John Snow, Armand Vallée, and Joan van Belkum. Each artist uses varied techniques to portray Alberta’s flat prairies, rolling hills, and long highways with rich depth and clear lines of sight.

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1 Lexico.com, s.v. “field of vision (n.),” accessed April 15, 2021, https://www.lexico.com/definition/field_of_vision.

2 Lexico.com, s.v. “line of sight (phrase),” accessed April 15, 2021, https://www.lexico.com/definition/line_of_sight.

3 Naomi Blumberg, “Linear perspective,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, January 31, 2020, https://www.britannica.com/art/linear-perspective.

4 Tulika Bahadur, “De Pictura,” On Art and Aesthetics (blog), October 8, 2016, https://onartandaesthetics.com/2016/10/08/de-pictura.