HORIZON LINES
AND VANISHING POINTS

The horizon line, or eye level is the line at which the artist sees flat land or where the sea meets the sky. On hilly land or a cityscape you cannot see this line so you have to imagine it.

The line is where your eyes are looking if you do not look either up or down but just look straight ahead. On this horizon line you will find the vanishing point.
This is the point to which all your perspective lines are pointing.

In this painting I give you two vanishing points.

RULE

All parallel lines that lie on the same plane,
meet at the same vanishing point.

If the parallel lines are on a horizontal plane,
this vanishing point will be on the horizon.

In the “Monterosso Interlude” painting, the roof line of the bell tower on the right and the line where the wall meets the ground are both horizontal.

Therefore the vanishing point for these lines lies on the horizon line.

On the left the vanishing point is where the second window from the bottom on the red building meets the wall of the pink building.