Satire on False Perspective

Satire on False Perspective
Artist	William Hogarth
Year	1754
Type	engraving

Satire on False Perspective is the title of an engraving produced by William Hogarth in 1754 for his friend Joshua Kirby's pamphlet on linear perspective.

The intent of the work is clearly given by the subtitle:

Whoever makes a DESIGN without the Knowledge of PERSPECTIVE will be liable to such Absurdities as are shewn in this Frontiſpiece

The work shows a scene that provides many deliberate examples of confused and misplaced perspective effects. Although the individual components of the scene seem self-consistent, the scene itself can be classed as an example of an impossible object.

The most immediately prominent errors are the first three or four:

Aside from the impossibilities of scale there are in fact approximately 10 different horizons based on the various vanishing points.

Until Brook Taylor's treatise on linear perspective was published in 1715, artists were taught perspective by studying methods used in earlier works by famous artists, rather than studying the mathematics behind the methods. Hogarth created the St Martin’s Lane Academy partially to remedy this gap in studies, and he invited his friend Kirby to become a perspective teacher there. Kirby obliged and later, by publishing his pamphlet, became famous enough to gain a royal appointment as a perspective teacher.

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