Britain

Abstract

The different waves that had awakened an interest in perspective in various circles on the Continent did not reach the British Isles until the end of the seventeenth century. Paintings were unwanted in the Protestant churches, and in Britain they were not demanded in great quantities in private homes, as had been the case in the Netherlands. The few British painters who could make a living in the early modern period mainly painted portraits with backgrounds that did not require any knowledge of perspective. In addition, the group of British mathematical practitioners and mathematicians did not take up the topic of perspective until the final decades of the seventeenth century. From then on and until around 1750, British tracts on perspective appeared at regular intervals. While all of Continental Europe, except the German states, saw the interest in writing about the subject declined during the second half of the eighteenth century, Britain experienced a boom with almost thirty new publications.