Inverse Perspective in Icon Painting 

This is not just a spiritual concept, but an awesome reverse persptctive piece of art!

Thank you so much for this very valuable presentation of this method and the theology and philosophy behind it. What you're saying around 7:00 harkens me back to my study of Jean Gebser and his notion of various different "consciousness structures". I don't think he would have said without qualification that pre-Renaissance man lacked perception of spatial depth, but that events like Petrarch's ascent of Mont Ventoux and the understanding that Leonardo would develop of perspective in his later years (I think I remember reading something about peering into oneself in the distance? or something to this effect) were the impetus behind Western concepts of spatial representation. He identified cubism (which was somewhat new at the time) as reflecting an "aperspectival" or integral consciousness, accompanying reverse and divergent perspective in representation.

The new context of this debate is image processing as part of AI and the digital revolution of computer graphics that now inform what has happened. I'm a writer on art and I''ve come to the realisation of a shared platform for all visual media. What I mean by this, is that there is an inevitable height and width and thus pictorial acreage to the visual field of perceived objects and space and all of that is subject to the rules of perspective geometry. What's more, is that those rules of perspective apply not just to the visual field of objects and space but all visual media, so there is that transcendental pictorial context of perspective geometry going on at all times, whether in reverse or not, the rules are still there. Modernism is a conceit about that, as is the icon painting where a square looks like a square but it could also be an illusion of a trapezohedron, for example. That transcendental geometric context must inevitably be all pervasive, thus proving that atheism has no philosophical basis on account of immanent architectonic revelation, or the possibility of it at all times. In that sense, Modernism is a form of visual chaos theory. Thanks for making the video as it sets a precedent for the current age. I've written a text called The Unifying Theory of Art (see google), if you or anyone else is interested in that 21C challenge.

Tj9s is a neautyful explanation. Orthodox Christian icons are still in this style. The perspective is used for many reasons, one of them being that the world opens up to a viewer (with a point perspective, for example, the further you look, the less you see, the world closes as you look on), the timelessness of the events is depicted. The point about tonality is also a very good one.

Such a thoughtful and well-explained explanation, Sean. Thank you.

Absolutly incredible video! Thank you for sharing that immense amount of knowledge. I could liste to you for hours. Could you do a video talking about how Cézanne and on the other side Picasso and Braque pictured things the way they really are, or better said, what was their concept of capturing the truth of their motifs? It would be really kind. Kind regards, from germany.

Such crystal clear explanations of what has always seemed so obscure to me! I came here to learn about reverse perspective because I am interested in David Hockney but ended up deciding to learn more about Icon Painting! Hope to see more of your videos!

As an Orthodox Christian, your explanation was great.

Such an informative and inspiring video. Thank you so much for sharing! Are there any resources that you would recommend for this specific topic?

What is the painting at 22:50 ? (Great lecture btw.)

Can you send me the reference for the chinese medieval writing quote? Greetings from Brazil!

Where do you teach Byzantine iconography (if you still do)?