Programme 7

Programme Outline

This programme demonstrates how the use of perspective changed between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries. The colours and outlines of objects appear to become less intense and less precise as they approach the horizon. This technique is known as ‘aerial perspective’; it can be seen in Rubens’ Autumn Landscape with Het Steen. By the nineteenth century, some artists such as Turner had become less concerned with making their paintings look ‘realistic’, partly in order to concentrate more on the paint and on the surface of the painting itself.