The history of linear perspective follows both the history of art and the history of geometry. The oldest known drawings still in existence are cave drawings from the Paleoanthrofic era. The best preserved of these drawings, dating back some 20-30,000 years, are located in a group of caves in the South of France. The subject of these wall-paintings was generally hunted animals like the buffalo or elk. These primitive drawings are symbolic and flat representations of animals. Rarely one finds indications of space through the process of overlapping.
Drawings of Elks from the paleoanthrofic era
The first drawings from non-cave dwelling, "modern" civilizations appeared in Babylon and Egypt. The subject of these paintings was much broader than the cave drawings of the Paleoanthrofic era. The aim of these ancient paintings was to tell a story that represented the daily life of the people or a story of the Gods. Perspective was also more advanced in the sense that the pictures incorporated more than one point of view of the image-- i.e. profile, front view, etc. However, these points of view were all combined into a single, awkward framework combining, for instance, a full-front body attached to profile head and legs. Depth was represented by the overlapping of figures or by placing one figure higher in the picture plane than the other, without changing the size for more distant objects (shrinkage was not discovered yet).
Egyptian grave drawing
Go on to next section: Part 2: Perception of Space in antique paintings
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