To the modern mind, it's hard to believe that perspective had to be "discovered", but before the 1400s paintings simply lacked accurate perspective. Instead, important people and objects were simply shown larger than less important ones; and although distant objects were sometimes shown smaller than near ones, this wasn't done in a regular and accurate way. Just as odd, many paintings didn't represent the other meaning of perspective either—that is, a scene might not be shown as if it were being seen from one single place. Today, perspective is used much like standpoint. Just as standpoint once used to mean simply the physical place where you stand but today also means the way you "see" things as a result of who you are and what you do, the same could be said about perspective.
Noun (1)The elegant economy of the drawing and the wild inventiveness of such pictorial devices as the towering pitcher's mound and the impossible perspective of Snoopy's doghouse keep the repetitiveness, talkiness, and melancholy of the strip a few buoyant inches off the ground, and save it from being fey. John Updike, New Yorker, 22 Oct. 2007Courses offer an international perspective, so even a lesson on the American Revolution will interweave sources from Britain and France with views from the Founding Fathers. Claudia Wallis et al., Time, 18 Dec. 2006Tipper and I still marvel at everything we saw and the perspective it offered. At a moment when the country was still in the throes of the conflict over Vietnam, it was refreshing to see the best of America. Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, 2006
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
Middle French, probably modification of Old Italian prospettiva, from prospetto view, prospect, from Latin prospectus — more at prospect
Adjective
Middle English, optical, from Medieval Latin perspectivus
Noun (2)
Middle English perspectyf, from Medieval Latin perspectivum, from neuter of perspectivus of sight, optical, from Latin perspectus, past participle of perspicere to look through, see clearly, from per- through + specere to look — more at per-, spy