Artworks

This text is as unique as it is significant: the first book to be printed at Toul (1505), it appeared while the first Italian tracts on perspective were still in manuscript form. Pélerin’s impressive eye for accuracy allowed him to create remarkably modern-feeling illustrations, with clean and sharp lines. Detailing the use of two distance points and a vanishing point for the first time in European art, Pélerin's treatise was created as an artist's manual. Although not an artist himself, this King’s diplomat was involved in architectural projects at the cathedral of Toul in 1498, where he is likely to have developed his fascination with perspective. 

In 1509, Jörg (or Georg) Glockendon translated the text into German and published the present edition: Von der Kunnst Perspectiva. This edition is usually regarded as a pirated version, as Glockendon omitted all the signs of Pélerin’s authorship: his device, the pilgrim’s staff, and his name, Viator, on the title and in the final illustration. Glockendon copied the outstanding full- page woodcuts from Pélerin’s first edition so faithfully that they were sometimes taken as prints from the original woodblocks. This plagiarism may have forced Pélerin into action: he prepared a second edition (Toul 1509 [1510]) with several new woodcuts and replaced some illustrations, in which he referred to Nuremberg art by using two examples from Dürer’s works and correcting their perspective. 

Most of the plates within this treatise provide both the plan and elevation of the subject. The woodcuts are executed in a sober, almost ‘modern’, style in simple outline, making the compositions extremely clear and intelligible. Many have remarked that the graphic style is so unlike any other form of artistic expression of that era that is feels like a sudden step forward into a completely modern system of pictorial organisation. 

Read about other books like this in our blogpost, Perspectives of all times.

We are honoured to have been included in a special collection for Frieze Masters Viewing Room 2020 - read about it here.

Make sure to watch our video on persepectival art, which includes this item.