Inverse Perspective in Icon Painting

Inverse perspective (also called reverse perspective) is a stylistic method of representing near objects as smaller and more distant objects as larger—the reverse of how things appear to us. Inverse perspective is common in Byzantine icon painting, and also appears in other ancient and modern art. After looking at some examples, I offer reasons for this practice. First I discuss the practice in Chinese Art of ‘painting from the angle of totality ‘. Then I offer reasons from two of the main sources of early Christian thought: the Bible and Plato.