![]() ![]() ![]() In theatre, the perspective image of the sketch is not the final result, but it must be enriched by a last projective process, completely absent in pictorial art: upon reaching the reduction of the physical space to the perspective drawing, this two-dimensional image must be again appropriately transposed into the physical space of the stage, so that the sketch coincides perfectly with the perspective representation of that visual space. Architecture has been, in the centuries, the undisputed protagonist of the scenic space, the privileged subject of any empirical attempts, studies and researches aimed at codifying a precise geometric method, able to perform a graphic transcription between different dimensions of spaces, due to the adaptation of stereometric volumes to the bi-dimensional iconic plane. Proscenium is the architectural translation of the painting frame that is a limit for the perspective space it surrounds, as the Renaissance painters have accustomed us. We could imagine it as a transparent veil, framed by the proscenium, which delimits and crops the perspective image. ![]() The space depth, the architectural massing, as well as the luminous effects, are directly designed in perspective in order to evaluate the illusory effect which the scene will offer to the viewer in geometric terms, this appealing painted and, thus, two-dimensional image, is ideally placed along a liminal plane, a virtual separation between the reality in the auditorium and the fiction beyond the grand drape. The starting point and the perfect synthesis of the design complexity is the sketch, a painted perspective image which is a full design concept that simulates the vision of spectators it is a single meaningful image that harmoniously synthesizes the measured alchemy of illusory tricks adopted. Stage design is an articulated system of projective processes, whose aim is to create a purely visual emotion when the grand drape rises, disclosing the space behind the actors, framed by the proscenium, which separates the illusory space on the stage from the real one in the auditorium. ![]() In particular, we’ll examine Ferdinando Galli Bibiena’s treatise, L’architettura civile preparata su la geometria e ridotta alle prospettive ( 1711), which carefully describes the aforementioned stage design complexity. However, this design complexity is rarely highlighted by scholars, who end up commenting that the sketch is just like a perspective painted image, without reading the need for transposition into the physical space of the stage, that instead affects many compositional choices and exceptions, hidden in the apparent harmony of the general overall picture. Setting up a scene is a very similar process to architectural planning, made of plans, sections and executive details of each element, in order to create a physical space but having the sole purpose of giving back a global image of itself, exactly coincident with the planned sketch. Stage design is an articulated system of projective processes, whose aim is to create a purely visual emotion for the spectators when the curtain rises, disclosing that portion of space that is behind the actors. ![]()
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