AXONOMETRY
a chronology
“Isometric perspective,
Less faithful to appearance, is more faithful to fact;
It shows things more nearly
As they are known to the mind:
Parallel lines are really parallel;
There is no far and no near,
The size of everything remains contact
Because all things are represented as being the same distance away
And the eye of the spectator everywhere at once.
When we imagine a thing,
Or strive to visualize it in the mind or memory,
We do it this way,
Without the distortions of ordinary perspective.
Isometric perspective is therefore more intellectual,
Archetypal it more truly renders the mental image -
The thing seen in the mind eye”
Claude Bragdon : The Frozen Fountain, 1932
“Isometric perspective,
Less faithful to appearance, is more faithful to fact;
It shows things more nearly
As they are known to the mind:
Parallel lines are really parallel;
There is no far and no near,
The size of everything remains contact
Because all things are represented as being the same distance away
And the eye of the spectator everywhere at once.
When we imagine a thing,
Or strive to visualize it in the mind or memory,
We do it this way,
Without the distortions of ordinary perspective.
Isometric perspective is therefore more intellectual,
Archetypal it more truly renders the mental image -
The thing seen in the mind eye”
Claude Bragdon : The Frozen Fountain, 1932
“Along the River During the Qingming Festival” by Zhang Zeduan | 1085–1145 (Link)
Detail of “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” by Zhang Zeduan | 1085–1145
Early Greek attempt to depict a sense of depth on the picture plane.
Modernist El Lissitzky was the first western artist to graphically depict the difference between linear perspective and an axonometric projection.