Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Scenographia

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

SCENOGRAPH'IA (σκενογραφία). The perspective draught of a building, &c., as it really appears to the eye of a spectator, and would be represented in landscape or scene painting (Vitruv. 1, 2, 3.); and as contradistinguished from the geometrical draught (orthographia), which represents the same as it would appear if it could be viewed from an infinite distance. It has been said that the ancient draughtsmen were not acquainted with the art of linear perspective; and the numerous errors observable in the architectural and landscape scenes amongst the Pompeian designs are referred to in corroboration of that opinion; but it must be remembered that the artists who executed those works were merely provincial house-painters and decorators, of unequal merits, some of whom were certainly deficient in this respect; but the intricate and accurate designs of many amongst them, evince, on the other hand, a perfect knowledge of perspective. There is, consequently, no sufficient reason for doubting the genuineness of the term, nor for altering the reading in the above passage of Vitruvius, as some commentators propose.