Sensation and Perception 9th Edition by Bruce Goldstein

Exercise 1

One of the triumphs of art is creating the impression of depth on a two-dimensional canvas. Go to a museum or look at pictures in an art book, and identify the depth information that helps increase the perception of depth in these pictures. You may also notice that you perceive less depth in some pictures, especially abstract ones. In fact, some artists purposely create pictures that are perceived as "flat." What steps do these artists have to take to accomplish this?
Figure 1 A scene on the coast of Maine showing the effect of atmospheric perspective.

Figure 2 (a) Where are the spheres located in relation to the checkerboard? (b) Adding shadows makes their location clearer.

Figure 3 Texture gradients created by marathon runners and flowers. The increasing fineness of texture as distance increases enhances the perception of depth.