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Start here

  • Looking at art
    • Browse this content
    • Why art matters
      • Why art matters (why look at art?)
      • Must art be beautiful? Picasso’s Old Guitarist
      • How art can help you analyze
      • The Power to Look
      • Alejandro Cesarco, What does looking mean?
      • What work of art inspired you?
      • How to enjoy art: Ben Street
    • Elements of Art
      • Line
      • Shape and Form
      • Color
      • Space
      • Texture
      • Surface and Depth
      • Light and shadow
    • Principles of composition
      • Balance, symmetry, and emphasis
      • Movement
      • Proportion and scale
      • Pattern, repetition and rhythm, variety and unity
    • Describing what you see
      • Introduction to art historical analysis
      • How to do visual (formal) analysis
      • Art historical analysis with Goya’s Third of May, 1808
      • Describing what you see: sculpture
  • Approaches to art history
    • Browse this content
    • An introduction to art history
      • Browse this content
      • What is art history and where is it going?
      • Art history and world art history
      • Ever wondered… why people become art historians?
      • Ever wondered…why study art of the past?
      • Art and empathy
      • A brief history of the representation of the body in Western painting
      • A brief history of the representation of the body in Western sculpture
    • The language of art history
      • Browse this content
      • Naturalism, realism, abstraction and idealization
      • Contrapposto explained
      • Foreshortening explained
      • Chiaroscuro explained
      • Linear perspective explained
      • Atmospheric perspective explained
      • Classic, classical, and classicism explained
      • Classical orders of architecture explained
      • What is genre painting?
    • Methods of art history
      • An introduction to iconography and iconographic analysis
    • Brief histories of art and culture
      • Browse this content
      • Common questions about dates
      • What maps tell us
      • A brief history of the cultures of Asia
      • A brief history of Western culture
      • About chronological periods in the Islamic world
      • Africa historical overview: to 1600
      • Africa historical overview: from the 1600s to the present
    • Questions in art history
      • Browse this content
      • What is cultural heritage?
      • Where are the women artists?
      • Why are there so few female artists?
      • Must art be beautiful?
      • Is there a difference between art and craft?
      • What’s the point of realism?
      • What made art valuable: then and now?
      • What does it mean to be an “old master” and to make a “masterpiece”?
    • Current issues in art history
      • Browse this content
      • Why you don’t like art history
      • Cultural heritage “in crisis”
      • How Climate Changes Art
      • The $150,000 Banana
      • Art about Migration
      • What does art tell us about gender?
      • Should Art Be Publicly Funded?
      • Why Do Corporations Buy Art?
      • What does resistance look like?
      • The Art Market and taxes
      • The Case for Copying
      • The case for nudity
      • Trending artists
      • Behind the Banksy Stunt
      • Art, Pride, and the Rainbow Flag
  • Tools for understanding museums
    • Browse this content
    • The case for museums
    • A brief history of the art museum
    • Museums and politics: the Louvre, Paris
    • Art Museums and (Art) Objects
    • Artists in and against the Museum
    • The changing social functions of art museums
    • Looking at Art Museums
    • Local art appropriation in France—a study of the loot in the Louvre Museum
    • Remake the Met
    • How museums shape meaning
    • An interview with Fred Wilson about the conventions of museums and race
  • Tools for understanding religion in art
    • Browse this content
    • Beginner’s guide
      • The five major world religions
      • A brief history of religion in art
    • Christianity
      • Browse this content
      • Christianity, an introduction
      • The Christian Bible
      • A new pictorial language: the image in Early Medieval art
      • The life of Christ in medieval and Renaissance art
      • The lives of Christ and the Virgin in Byzantine art
      • How to recognize the Four Evangelists
      • How to recognize saints
      • Architecture and liturgy
      • The audacity of Christian art
        • Browse this content
        • 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
      • Browse this content
      • Introduction to Islam
      • The Qur’an
      • The Five Pillars of Islam
      • Islamic pilgrimages and sacred spaces
      • Hajj
      • The Kaaba
      • Stories of the modern pilgrimage
      • The complex geometry of Islamic design
      • Introduction to mosque architecture
    • Hinduism
      • Browse this content
      • Hinduism and Buddhism, an introduction
      • Discovering Sacred Texts: Hinduism
      • Sacred texts in Hinduism
      • Hindu deities
      • Beliefs made visible: Hindu art in South Asia
      • Hindu temples
      • Varanasi: sacred city
    • Buddhism
      • Browse this content
      • Introduction to Buddhism
      • The historical Buddha
      • How to recognize the Buddha
      • How to recognize a bodhisattva
      • The Buddha and Buddhist sacred texts
      • The stupa
      • Images of Enlightenment: Aniconic vs. Iconic Depictions of the Buddha in India
      • Four Buddhas at the American Museum of Natural History
      • Buddhist meditation and chant
      • Bodh Gaya: center of the Buddhist world
      • Bodh Gaya: The Site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment
      • Mudras in Buddhist art
      • Beliefs made visible: Buddhist art in South Asia
      • Bodhisattvas, an introduction
      • 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
      • The Torah and its adornment
      • Jewish ceremonial art
  • For the very beginner
    • Browse this content
    • Ancient Near Eastern and ancient Egyptian art
    • 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

Foreshortening explained

by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Foreshortening explained," in Smarthistory, December 2, 2016, accessed December 9, 2023, https://smarthistory.org/foreshortening-explained/.
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