Page from Simeon De Witt, The Elements of Perspective (Albany: H.C. Southwick, 1813)

This fold-out engraving from Simeon De Witt’s The Elements of Perspective directs how to use geometry to construct a perspective view of an object—in this case, a city block. The illustrations demonstrate the principle of the vanishing point, in which all lines that are parallel will appear to converge on a single point, and that lines that are both parallel and horizontal will converge to a point on the horizon. Treatises on how to render three-dimensional objects had been in print for well over a century, but almost exclusively in Europe. The engravings in such books illustrated their principles with scenes from antiquity—with colonnades, aqueducts, and basilicas—peopled by figures in Renaissance dress. By demonstrating his principles with scenes from his own experience, De Witt made his treatise both modern and American. BH