Essentials to Be Rendered

ESSENTIALS TO BE RENDERED Mass.—From the renderer's point of view a building is, in the first place, a material mass. While it is not, in actuality, a mass in the sense that a mountain is a mass, i.e., it is not a solid, never theless the effect of solidity is essential to it. And while, in con structing a building, this effect may be the last to be realized, in drawing a building it is logically the first. The renderer must realize the presence of mass before he can fully realize the presence of any appurtenant form. It may be likened to the clay which a sculptor must grasp before any particular shape can be given or any details modelled. The first necessary attribute of a convincing architectural rendering is, correspondingly, an adequate suggestion of mass. Without this primary effect of solidity, all details which may be delineated later must appear without body and the pre sentation as a whole must lack substance.

imbued with a sense of the substantial nature that his subject, in general, possesses, the renderer addresses him self to a study of its particular form. It is generally taken for granted that if accurate floor plans and elevations are available, an accurate image of the building can be produced by following the rules of perspective draughtsmanship—those rules are said to have originated with Leonardo and are commonly accepted as being correct and comprehensive. The fact is, however, that there is considerable question as to how forms really look. It is quite doubtful if the system of perspective draughtsmanship which we accept as a science, is more than a convention—a convention which, indeed, is usually of great help to accurate representation and yet, in numerous instances, is a specific hindrance. The form ing, in the human eye of images of buildings appears, in fact, to involve factors with which we, as renderers, have not yet ade quately dealt (see PERSPECTIVE).

The Single Viewpoint.

One item to be considered in this connection is that, in laying out perspectives the draughtsman habitually assumes that the subject is being viewed from a single viewpoint. He establishes, on his draughting board, a specific

point, termed the "viewpoint" and his operations proceed from this base. But this assumption is inadequate to the extent that the appearance which a building actually produces on a one-eyed man is inadequate as compared to that produced on a two-eyed man. In some cases, the discrepancy is not remarkable—as, for example, small forms viewed at considerable distances. But, in forms which are closely scrutinized, the discrepancy becomes pro nounced ; there is a definite lack of the three-dimensional quality to the single-eyed vision, and there is a corresponding flatness to the general run of perspectives laid out from the single viewpoint.

The Stationary Viewpoint.

A second item is that a draughtsman in laying out his perspective assumes, according to the convention, that his single viewpoint is stationary. In reality, however, an observer in forming his image of a building, assumes a series of viewpoints. In seriously studying a building, one will purposefully view it from many different angles; but even if the interest is only casual one will instinctively look at it more than once—always from a viewpoint which is, of necessity, slightly altered. In all cases, it may be said that the image which the observer takes away with him is not the single first impression received from a literally stationary viewpoint, but is a composite of several distinct impressions. This composite quality of the image is an essential which demands the renderer's attention : how he may, by a cunning draughtsmanship, convey this aspect of the case is considered in this article under the heading of "Procedure." The foregoing consideration involves a problem that often ap pears in rendering; viz., one is often faced with the necessity of choosing between a truthful pictorial statement of the building which is being drawn and a truthful statement of the viewpoint which happens to have been chosen.