Читать книгу Imperial Illusions - Kristina Kleutghen - Страница 87

2.8Detail of teapot. From Nian Xiyao, The Study of Vision. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, Douce Chin. B. 2, p. 75r.

in The Study of Vision, perhaps these illustrations also suggest how Nian used sketches to communicate design ideas to Tang Ying at Jingdezhen while remaining at Huai’an.⁵⁸

The sixth section of The Study of Vision (43r–50r) presents objects (rather than spaces) created using distance-point perspective. In one of the most visually legible illustrations of this section (figure 2.9), which builds from one step to the next over several pages, the distance point is marked with yi (the equivalent of the letter B) and the vanishing point with jia (the equivalent of A) written directly on the corner of the top right border. The dotted lines spreading out from this single vanishing point toward the object are not light rays, but orthogonals that rake over its plan and elevation on the left; the places where the orthogonals intersect with the object at numbered and lettered points correspond to the same points in the central completed image. This section of the treatise, however, is arguably the most opaque: although the results are fairly clear in the end, the steps necessary to achieve them are anything but, and the illustrations do little to clarify the process.