“All-Sided” Thinking. The Theme of Three-Dimensional Seeing in Nicholas of Cusa, Jan van Eyck, and Leonardo da Vinci

Abstract

Alongside the relationship between philosophy and painting, in the fifteenth and  sixteenth centuries, a speculative interest emerged in the concept of three dimensional vision in Cusa, Jan van Eyck, Marsilio Ficino, and Giorgione da  Castelfranco. The visio circularis theme becomes a central metaphor for a new  way of thinking and seeing the world, which culminates in Leonardo da Vinci’s  studies on perspective. In this context, the mirror forms a dominant theme in the  development of the studies and applications of perspective, which becomes in creasingly sensitive to sculptural relief.