Perspective is a system that is used by artists, designers, engineers, etc. to represent three- dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface. An artist uses perspective in order to represent nature or objects in the most effective way possible. It evolved from "Construzione Legittma" that was probably invented in the earth fifteenth century, most likely by Brunelleschi. Alberti, Uccello and Piero della Francesca all improved upon Brunelleschi's theories.

In a perspective system, the idea is that although parallel lines never meet, they can be made to appear as if they do meet. Also, parallel lines do meet if they are going in one direction, and there is a vanishing point at that these lines meet on the horizon. These early theories about perspective were based on a single vanishing point, and any other parallels were exempted from the idea that they had to meet at some point in the distance. This system works very well as an aesthetic system in order for the artist to create an order that is independent of order, or a world in a picture that is distinct from the real world. However, the system does not work well if an artist is trying to create an exact, physically real image. In order to compensate for this duality, a new system of perspective emerged that used two vanishing points on the horizon as a minimum, with more points being used in order to reflect uphill and downhill representations. Also, by use of measuring points, objects can be much more realistically scaled.

These ideas are easily learned in a short period of time by artists. However, most artists are no longer interested in the representation of three-dimensional objects and so either reject the idea or create their own illusions of space within their artwork.