Aerial Perspective - Oxford Definition

The illusion of distance in the landscape in a painting achieved by making objects paler and bluer the further they are from the viewer. The term was invented by Leonardo da Vinci, though aerial perspective had been known since antique mural painting. Among its most famous later exponents were the landscape painters Claude Lorrain and Turner. The French Neoclassical landscape painter P.-H. de Valenciennes, in his fundamental treatise of 1800, Élémens de perspective…, described aerial perspective as ‘the effect of vaporous or ambient air between different objects’. For perspective achieved by linear means, see PERSPECTIVE.