The Origin of Perspective

"Damisch's achievement lies in having called into question the art-historical methodologies that still dominate work in this field. His willingness to reconsider the epistemological basis of the discipline gives this book its special relevance and value for the circumstances in which we find ourselves today."
-- Keith Moxey, "Artforum" "Was perspective an approximation to 'normal' perception of space, evolved in the fourteenth century, codified by Alberti, and rendered obsolete by Cizanne -- or is it a 'symbolic form, ' one way of discoursing about space, which conditions perception, rather than merely describe it? Damisch brings not only his vast learning but also great subtlety to bear on this question. It is a virtuoso performance of a book that will be treasured and read repeatedly by anyone interested in the art of our own time, as well as in its history."
-- Joseph Rykwert, Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture, university of Pennsylvania.
In part a response to Panofsky's Perspective as Symbolic Form, The Origin of Perspective is much more. In France it is considered one of the most important works of art history to have appeared in the last twenty years. With the exception of Michel Foucault's analysis of Las Meninas, it is perhaps the first time a structuralist method such as the one developed by Claude Livi-Strauss in The Way of the Masks has been thoroughly and convincingly applied to Western art.