2. Depth in images

The notion of depth is historically associated with the history of art. It was put forward and theorized, not by scientists, but by artists. Their attempts at the structured representation of space were first seen in architecture, but quickly spread to other forms of artistic expression. In painting, this concern for spatial coherence went beyond the simple notion of perspective, to give rise to more theoretical research into ways of enhancing the impression of depth. These initiatives led to the discovery of processes based on the properties of vision, and on notions that we find today in the development of virtual reality.

The rational discovery of ways to reproduce depth was the work of the artists of the Quattrocento, the first Italian Renaissance. It began with the so-called "invention of perspective", and remains associated with the names of Brunelleschi and...