Ranging across classical antiquity, medieval art, and the Renaissance, Panofsky reinterprets perspective as an intellectual and cultural construct rather than a neutral mirror of visual reality. What appears as a naturalistic system of depiction emerges instead as an abstraction—one that organizes space into a homogeneous, infinite continuum and reflects a distinctly modern conception of knowledge and subjectivity.

Panofsky’s argument, deeply informed by the philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, transformed the study of perspective from a question of artistic technique into a central problem of cultural history. His essay continues to shape the field, standing as a lasting point of reference for debates on representation across art history, visual studies, philosophy, and critical theory.

This new edition presents the original German text alongside a fresh English translation, offering readers unprecedented access to Panofsky’s nuanced argument. It invites a return to a work whose richness, difficulty, and ambition have shaped generations of scholarship—and continue to challenge how we see, interpret, and situate images within history.