1 Paintings looked flat a long time ago. Egyptian art showed faces looking sideways. Egyptian art on the pyramid walls had just one eye peering out at you. Later artists discovered a new view. They called this new view "perspective."
2 Perspective is what makes things look 3D. The word comes from a Latin word. Here is another way to think about it. Pretend that you are standing on railroad tracks. If you look down the tracks, they get smaller. If you drew a picture of the tracks, you would try to make them look like they are going into your paper. That means your picture would have perspective.
3 Two Italians invented perspective in the 15th century. The time was called the Renaissance. One man was an architect and a sculptor. The other man was an artist. They used a point like a dot on their canvas. This was the vanishing point. They made lines to the point. Then, they used those lines to draw everything else. That little point made a big difference in their art. You might say that the vanishing point made a better point of view.
Paragraphs 4 to 5:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable
