Anamorphic Perspective and Architectural Space. Two Works by Felice Varini and Georges Rousse

The relationship between theoretical-scientific research and artistic practice in architectural design has always been full of potential. Its richness is the expression of a union that becomes an echo of wider historical and philo- sophical changes, as it was well underlined by scholars such as Panofsky and Gombrich (Panofsky in La prospettiva come forma simbolica e altri scritti. Feltrinelli, Milan, 1961; Gombrich et al. in Arte, percezione e realtà. Einaudi, Turin, 1978). In particular, the long and articulated history of the prospective model in architectural representation has been collecting, and continues to this day, a large multidisciplinary interest, thanks to what is actually an aberration, or anamorphosis. The anamorphic perspective drawing, a projective technique developed in parallel with the science of perspective, leads to the extremes the scientific principles of optics at the basis of prospectiva artificialis to generate amazement and wonder in its viewers. In this paper, the aim is to explore the drawing exploratory potentials throughout the perspective restitution of pho- tographs of anamorphosis realized by two contemporary artists, Felice Varini and Georges Rousse. This experiment, carried out in the virtual space of drawing, helps to reveal mechanisms the vision is shaped by making images contained within the installations to appear and disappear when the point of view changes. The space-movement binomial becomes the key that allows solving a real three-dimensional puzzle.