Linear perspective was invented in the European Renaissance for creating and organizing three-dimensional space geometrically in painting and architecture. However, the cavalier perspective in traditional Chinese art — which reverses the foreshortening of linear perspective space and presents space in a two-dimensional planar form via orthographic projection and panoramic composition — departs from the science-based linear perspective. During the Renaissance, a striking divergence of notions of spatial perception derived from linear perspective appeared between Chinese and European art. Closely linked with space producing, the process of managing different perspectives not only represents diverse spatial perceptions but also is concerned with the correlation between space and time. The cognition of “time” and “space” plays an important role in culture formatting. The applications of linear and cavalier perspectives appear as the epitomes of the spatiotemporal conceptions in the Eastern and Western cultural contexts. This paper compares the spatiotemporal conceptions conducing to the formation of linear and cavalier perspectives in European Renaissance art and traditional Chinese painting. Exploring both the cultural-historical origin of the different spatiotemporal concepts in the East and West as well as the overlap between them. It discusses the roles linear, cyclical, and spiral temporal conceptions play in the European and Chinese ways of perceiving and producing perspectival space, as influenced by cosmological, religious, epistemological, and scientific factors. This particular focus will additionally extend to the Western and Chinese linguistic structures that contribute to their different cognitions of time and space.

Authors:
Nuo Cheng, University of Dundee, United Kingdom

About the Presenter(s)
Nuo Cheng is currently a second-year theoretical PhD student at the University of Dundee, working across art theory, philosophy, and humanities. Her research focuses on the comparison between Eastern and Western art.

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