Response to Masters of Illusion with James Burke

In the short film, Masters of Illusion, James Burke describes the importance of the Renaissance artist’s on today’s film industry.  We see movies all the time that use visual tricks to make the supposed scene believable.  However, many people don’t know that these special effects are basic techniques originated in the Renaissance.  Instead of a movie screen, many Renaissance artist’s worked on flat surfaces, such as a canvas, or even a wall.  Their use of optic and visual perception became basic building blocks for visual art for centuries.  One of the first and most important illusions used was linear perspective.  It created depth to the flat surface of a piece.  Depth is created when parallel lines converge at a point, called the vanishing point.  This powerful new tool showed up not only in paintings, but also in sculpture.  The video showed a palace in Florence that used this technique.  The flat images painted on the walls can easily be mistaken as tangible objects, because of the incredible use of optical illusion. Along with being artists, the Renaissance masters were also scientists.  Many of them did studies to discover new techniques and rules on optical illusion.  These studies were so precise and clean; they often looked as if a computer generated them.  As well as linear perspective, artists also experimented with light and shadow, atmospheric perspective, and anamorphic art. These artists’ were extremely intelligent and determined.  They were the founders of the basics of visual arts for centuries.