Brunelleschi and perspective

In the year 1415, the artist Filippo Brunelleschi discovered, or more honestly, re-
discovered a method of architecture that would revolutionize art forever. Linear
Perspective allowed art to have depth and appear to be in 3D, allowing portraits and
paintings to seem more realistic, a key factor that defined the Renaissance Era. This
invention coincidentally gained prominence at the same time as another cultural
movement, humanism. Humanism embraces human achievements in education,
classical arts, literature, and science. Both of these characteristics of the Renaissance
Era would combine together to put a light on art not seen before. 
Filippo Brunelleschi was an
Italian architect and designer. He
is considered to be the founding
father of Renaissance
architecture. Filippo Brunelleschi
a trained goldsmith has a wide
range of achievements in the
Renaissance Era including
designing and overseeing the red
dome on the Florence Cathedral.
Brunelleschi designing the dome
was a structural achievement
that had not been done since
ancient times, while also
changing the course of
architecture. However, it could
be argued that his greatest
achievement was the re-discovery of linear perspective in art, a discovery that would
change the way art is seen, forever. 
Linear perspective is a system of creating an illusion of depth on a flat surface. While
it is evidenced that the Greeks and Romans had discovered a form of linear
perspective in art (Column of Trajan/painted villas of Pompeii), during the Middle
Ages this unique characteristic was lost. The artistic point of view was changed in the
middle ages to reflect and emphasize the church. Artists were no longer interested in
portraits of the human body or the world around them. After 1000 years of this
artistic choice, it was clear to artists in Florence that they could not create depth in a
painting. If you look at the work of late middle age and/or early renaissance painters,
you can see the clear lack of depth evidenced. These paintings had a clear flat look to
them. A question that seemed to have no current answer kept arising, "How can you
make a picture seem realistic?" A simple question to people now, but a huge question
 that lacked an answer, an
answer that wasn't known
until Filippo Brunelleschi
figured it out.
Brunelleschi seemed to
observe that with a fixed
point of view, parallel
lines appear to converge
at a single point in the
distance. Brunelleschi
would then apply a single
vanishing point to a
canvas, to which all lines
on the same plane appear
to converge and objects
appear smaller as they
recede into the distance.
He would then use that
method to calculate
depth. A famous experiment involving Brunelleschi recalls him using mirrors to sketch
the Florence baptistry to perspective perfection. Brunelleschi was able to use math to
calculate the scale of objects within a painting to make them seem more realistic.
Brunelleschi found a way to bridge the gap between math and art. This was a
paramount achievement in art and architecture, and soon many other artists were
using Brunelleschi's method of perspective to incredible results in their own paintings.
This method was crucial to Renaissance art, where creating an accurate illusion of
space could seem natural and then be applied to the human body. Brunelleschi's ideas
became very well known after fellow Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti
published them in 1435 in his book, On Painting. The use of linear perspective rapidly
became and still is standard studio art practice today.