Back Home
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in posts
Search in pages

More results

Menu
  • Start here
    • Explore art
    • First things first
    • Tools for understanding art
    • Tools for understanding religion in art
    • Tools for understanding museums
    • For the very beginner
    • Close
  • Art histories
    • Prehistoric
      • Paleolithic
      • Neolithic
      • Close
    • Africa
      • East Africa
      • West Africa
      • North Africa
      • Southern Africa
      • Central Africa
      • Close
    • The Americas
      • North America to 1500
      • North America c. 1500 – 1900
      • South America to 1500
      • South America c. 1500 – 1900
      • Close
    • Asia
      • Hinduism and Buddhism: a beginner’s guide
      • China
      • Japan
      • Korea
      • India
      • Afghanistan
      • Southeast Asia
      • The Himalayas
      • Close
    • Ancient Mediterranean
      • Ancient Near East
      • Egyptian
      • Aegean
      • Greek
      • Nabataean
      • Etruscan
      • Roman
      • Palmyra
      • Close
    • Medieval Europe + Byzantine
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Christianity and art
      • Judaism and art
      • The medieval book
      • Early Christian
      • Byzantine
      • Carolingian
      • Ottonian
      • Romanesque
      • Gothic
      • The Crusades
      • Close
    • The Islamic World
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Early Period
      • Medieval Period
      • Later Period
      • Close
    • Europe 1300-1800
      • Italy: 14th century
      • Italy: 15th century
      • Italy: 16th century
      • Northern Europe: 15th century
      • Northern Europe: 16th century
      • Spain: 15th and 16th century
      • Reformation & Counter-Reformation
      • Baroque: 17th century
      • Rococo: early to mid 18th century
      • Neoclassicism: late 18th century
      • British: 18th century
      • Close
    • Europe 1800 – 1900
      • Romanticism
      • Early photography
      • Victorian Art
      • Realism
      • Second Empire
      • Impressionism
      • Post-Impressionism
      • Symbolism/Art Nouveau
      • The Peredvizhniki
      • Close
    • Oceania
      • Lapita people
      • Polynesia
      • Melanesia
      • Micronesia
      • Australia
      • Close
    • Modernisms 1900-1980
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Cubism + early abstraction
      • Dada + Surrealism
      • German art between the wars
      • Latin American Modernism
      • American art to World War II
      • Postwar American Art
      • Post Minimalism
      • Postwar Europe
      • Conceptual + Performance Art
      • Global vanguards
      • Architecture + design
      • Close
    • Global Cultures 1980 – now
      • Appropriation and ideological critique
      • Identity and the body
      • Banality and Kitsch
      • Ritual, spirituality, and transcendence
      • Histories, real and imagined
      • Close
    • Close
  • Themes + topics
    • Seeing America (bringing American history to life)
    • ARCHES (At Risk Cultural Heritage Education Series)
    • Across cultures
    • Creating + conserving
    • Short and long courses
    • AP Art History
    • A-level Art History
    • Contribute an essay!
    • Smarthistory video creation guide
    • Close

Start here

First things first
What is art history and where is it going?
Why you don't like art history
why look at art?
A brief history of Western culture
Common questions about dates
What maps tell us
What made art valuable: then and now
Unlock Art: Where are the Women?
Is there a difference between art and craft?
How art can help you analyze
What is cultural heritage?
Tools for understanding art
Introduction to art historical analysis
How to do visual (formal) analysis
Art historical analysis with Goya's Third of May, 1808
A brief history of the representation of the body in Western painting
A brief history of the representation of the body in Western sculpture
Contrapposto explained
Foreshortening explained
Chiaroscuro explained
Linear perspective explained
Atmospheric perspective explained
Classical orders of architecture explained
The Power to Look
Surface and Depth
Light and shadow
The Case for Copying
Tools for understanding religion in art
Beginner's guide
The five major world religions
A brief history of religion in art
Christianity
Christianity, an introduction
A new pictorial language: The image in Early Medieval art
Standard scenes from the life of Christ in art
Architecture and liturgy
The audacity of Christian art
The problem with Christ
Christ is not like a snail: Signs and symbols
Putting God in his place: here, everywhere, and nowhere
Time and eternity: Yesterday, today, and always
This world and the next: Christ on earth; Christ in heaven
So near and yet so far: visions and thresholds
Unspeakable images: when words fail
Islam
Introduction to Islam
The Five Pillars of Islam
Hajj
The Kaaba
Introduction to mosque architecture
Hinduism
Hinduism and Buddhism, an introduction
Beliefs made visible: Hindu art in South Asia
Hindu temples
Varanasi: sacred city
Buddhism
The historical Buddha
The stupa
Images of Enlightenment: Aniconic vs. Iconic Depictions of the Buddha in India
Four Buddhas at the American Museum of Natural History
Bodh Gaya: center of the Buddhist world
Beliefs made visible: Buddhist art in South Asia
Buddhist Monasteries
Judaism
Judaism, an introduction
Jewish history to the middle ages
Jewish history 1750 to WW II
Jewish history in the post-war period
Tools for understanding museums
The case for museums
A brief history of the art museum
Museums and politics: the Louvre, Paris
The changing social functions of art museums
How museums shape meaning
For the very beginner
Ancient Greek and Roman art
Medieval and Byzantine art
Renaissance art
Baroque and Rococo
Nineteenth-century art
Introduction to Twentieth-Century Art
Introduction to Contemporary Art
Glossary

Atmospheric perspective explained

by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Atmospheric perspective explained," in Smarthistory, June 7, 2017, accessed December 10, 2018, https://smarthistory.org/atmospheric-perspective/.

At Smarthistory, we’re on a mission to open museums and cultural sites up to the world. We’re creating world-class resources on art and cultural objects for learners from around the globe—for free.

  • Why Smarthistory matters
  • Smarthistory’s blog
  • Contribute an essay
  • Content editors and contributors
  • Donate
  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Contact Us

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

· © 2018 Smarthistory · Designed by Press Customizr · Powered by ·