Foreshortening

( Paint. & Persp.) The method of drawing, in strict accordance with the rules of perspective, the limbs or body of a human being, or the body of an animal, when we are looking directly against either of them, in a position which shows their breadth while it conceals their length, either entirely or partially. Or, in other words, foreshortening occurs when the latter is either approaching or receding from us, and when the former is extended, either toward us or from us, in a direction varying from a line which is at right angles to the surface of the eye to another that is parallel with it, under the former of which conditions it would be seen foreshortened to the greatest po ible degree, while under the latter it would be viewed in its entire length. Great attention must be paid to the treatment of light and shadow in foreshortening the arm, leg, or body of a human being, or the carca and legs of an animal, that the effect produced may convey a correct idea of the intention of the draughtsman, and that, although the object is shortened in drawing, so that the front or forepart only is presented to the view of the spectator, it may be clearly seen that it po e es length, and, as in the case of an extended arm, that it is projecting from the trunk to an extent compatible with the position in which it is placed. Practice in foreshortening may be best obtained by making drawings from plaster-casts of figures and animals placed in different positions; but the principle may be readily seen by placing a wooden cylinder on a vertical bar and turning it round, first in the horizontal plane pa ing through the eye of the observer, and then above and below that plane, while its outline a umes all forms between that of a circle when its end is directly opposite the eye, and that of a rectangular parallelogram when the eye beholds its entire length. In all positions between these extremes, the cylinder will present examples of foreshortening, although the term is more strictly confined to the view an object presents when its length is in a line perpendicular to the surface of the eye of the observer, or varying but little from it.