Before starting to search for similar books, I wanted to refresh my knowledge about “Kurzgefasste Einleitung zur Perspectiv”. I looked at the previous two exercises we did last semester and wrote down the topics I found most important, then tried to find about ten keywords I could later use for my search. For example perspective, exercise, drawing architecture, manual, etc.
Having my memory refreshed I started looking for similar books with Alice’s help. In the beginning, I had some difficulties navigating Alice, however, after a few tries, I got the hang of it. My first keyword was “drawing in perspective”, with the topic of conversation set to architecture. The first result which caught my attention was Van Eck’s “Eighteenth Century Architecture.” There were numerous quotes talking about the importance of perspective.
Van Eck’s book is a lot younger than Johann Christoph Bischof’s book. It’s a book about the architecture of the 18th century, covering numerous topics. At first, it looks completely different, comparing it to Bischof’s book. However, when looking closely it’s more alike than one might think. In a way, it’s also like a manual, a guide to architecture. However with a completely different approach. While Bischof’s is a manual for people wanting to design and build at that time, Van Eck’s book is like a manual, when one wants to know everything about the architecture from the 18th century.
I then continued my search with confidence, because I had already found a suitable book. However, the following keywords mostly led to a dead-end. Such as “manual”, “exercise 1” or the full title “Kurzgefasste Einleitung zur Perspectiv” (hoping to find a book which used mine as reference). I then carried on with the keyword “perspective” and once again the same book like before caught my eye, with the quote “Perspective was key to architecture.” I then carried on by reading its context and realized that this was written in reference to another book: Andrea Pozzo’s Prospettiva de’pittori e architetti.
I could not find the book in the Xenotheka library. After some time I could find the book online and realized I found the perfect match. It’s almost identical to Bischof’s book. Pozzo’s book was published 50 years prior to Bischof’s book and it appears to me as if Bischof was inspired by Pozzo. Pozzo’s book, like Bischofs, emphasized the importance of drawing in perspective by creating a book with examples of how architecture is constructed by drawing it in perspective.