Image-induced immersion

In a flat representation, the perception of space relies mainly on depth of field. Curiously, the desire to suggest a three-dimensional space did not appear until very late in the history of painting. One might have thought that civilizations such as the Greeks and Romans, with their concern for realism and their love of geometry, would have had the idea of using some of the many tools that give the illusion of depth, but this was not to be. For our Greco-Latin ancestors, only works in real relief were meaningful, and the number of sculptures they left testifies to this passion for realistic art.

In fact, the search for depth in painting did not appear until the early 15th century. After the religious symbolism of the Middle...