foreshortening

foreshortening, method of rendering a specific object or figure in a picture in depth.

The artist records, in varying degrees, the distortion that is seen by the eye when an object or figure is viewed at a distance or at an unusual angle. In a photograph of a recumbent figure positioned so that the feet are nearest the camera, for instance, the feet will seem unnaturally large and those body parts at a distance, such as the head, unnaturally small. The artist may either record this effect exactly, producing a startling illusion of reality that seems to violate the picture plane (surface of the picture), or modify it, slightly reducing the relative size of the nearer part of the object, so as to make a less-aggressive assault on the viewer’s eye and to relate the foreshortened object more harmoniously to the rest of the picture.

Insofar as foreshortening is basically concerned with the persuasive projection of a form in an illusionistic way, it is a type of perspective, but the term foreshortening is almost invariably used in relation to a single object, or part of an object, rather than to a scene or group of objects.