SCATTERED FOCAL POINT PERSPECTIVE

I was presented with a piece of work with the emphasis on perspective. In this instance, assuming a downward looking perspective.



Before I delve into this topic of perspective in Chinese paintings, let me address the concept of scattered focal point. As we thumb through "HOW TO" books on painting, we often find the terms horizon, vanishing point, etc. In Chinese Landscape paintings, the concept of scattered focal point is introduced. As you look at objects at different elevations, and I am using a building as an example, conventional wisdom will tell you that if you see mostly roof, then you are looking at the house from above. If you see mostly foundation, or the soffit then you are looking at it from below. A lot of Chinese landscape painting however depicts the buildings at various elevations as if one was looking at them from level ground, and this is the concept of scattered focal point.






The attached illustration makes that observation.



When the uninitiated individual looks at a Chinese landscape painting, one might notice exotic ways of representing mountains, hills, rocks and streams and vapor etc, but one can't quite put the finger on what else makes the painting different. This is almost like looking at a flat map of the world instead of the spherical map



Having said that, the artist can choose to deviate from this format, and utilize perspective to add to the overall feeling of the painting.



When I looked at the presented work, I had a strong feeling of discord. I will shy away from discussion of composition, but I will



try to address what I see is wrong, and it all has to do with perspective. The work pretends to present a view from above, thus the observer is looking at the top of the gazebo. Unfortunately nothing else suggests that. Everything else in this painting has the scattered focal point presentation.



I used the following indicators:



I should be able to see the water leading up to the fall on the left.



The water falls ( the artist says those are water falls ) on the right looks like streams if this was the perspective from above. They do not show a downward movement, just a north-south direction.



The contour lines on the hills are those of a typical observer at the same level, i.e. the contour line defines the ridge.



The artist did not accept my observation well. Perhaps

the artist is too entrenched in the Old School of copying and did not do much observing. I asked the artist to paint the same landscape, but using the traditional scattered focal point practice, to show me the difference his view of " from above" vs that scattered focal view and the artist was not able to do that. I then realized that his inability to do so stemmed from his lack of true understanding of "perspective".



I spent a couple of weeks attempting to present my case in a different fashion. I tried to draw the same painting by using my understanding of perspective, and I failed. I found that his type of landscape does not lend itself well to make my case.



I finally resorted to building models to illustrate my point. I crumbled a piece of paper and built my own mountain. I fashioned my gazebo top using a tiny square of paper, resting on a pin. Set up my light source to the right, above my "mountain" to simulate the sun, and took pictures from above and from eye level to get the 2 perspectives. I labelled the typical contour lines A,B,C,and D to show how these same contours, or land features, are different when viewed at different elevations.



What is readily apparent is that in the eye level shot ( gazebo top is in perfect side view), the contour lines pretty much defines the highest point of that feature, therefore a line defines a hill. Whereas in the birds eye view, that line has crept forward, followed by an area showing the "thickness" of the feature. This thickness can be addressed by light values and not by lines. One needs to add real estate beyond the contour line !! To make an extreme case of this, a tree at eye level shows the trunk and the crown. The same tree in the birds eye view will be a round circle of leaves, i.e. the "thickness" of the crown.

I showed these photos to the artist, and now he understood the point I was making. He asked to borrow the photos for further studies. This is why I am posting this, as it had been a consuming topic for the both of us, to explain and to comprehend.

I have certainly learned from this exercise. I had a concept that I could not verbalize, nor execute. At least now I have a better understanding.

But to the artist's credit, traditional Chinese landscape paintings often incorporate the bird's eye view with the scattered focal point perspective.  I am not sure how to put this concept across succinctly, what comes to mind is how we look at a world atlas.  We know the earth is round, so if we can conjure up a view from space, then northern Russia and Greeland would not be as big as they are seen on maps.

A two dimensional map tries to make the converging longitude lines into parallel lines, thus distorting the distances at the ends of these lines. Thus the typical perspective for a Chinese landscape painting is one that is a bird's eye view of the landscape, but the description of each part of the landscape is as if the person is seeing them at eye level.  One can almost claim that these paintings do not really distinguish foreground or background.  Every point of interest is "equal distance" from a perspective point of view.