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Foreshortening
Depicting an object or figure as shorter than its actual dimensions because it extends away from the viewer — the visual effect of perspective applied to three-dimensional forms rather than flat planes.
Definition
Foreshortening is the application of perspective principles to individual objects or body parts. A figure lying with their feet pointing toward the viewer appears to have very short legs — because the feet are close to the viewer and the torso recedes. An outstretched arm aimed at the viewer seems compressed. To render this convincingly requires the artist to draw what the eye actually sees, not what they intellectually know the object's proportions to be.
This requires overriding one's knowledge of the object's "true" shape — one of the most difficult perceptual and technical challenges in figure drawing. Renaissance artists mastered it through intensive study of anatomy and perspective geometry.
Leonardo's Approach
Leonardo studied foreshortening through his anatomical dissections — understanding the actual three-dimensional structure of limbs and muscles allowed him to reason accurately about how they would appear at any angle. His notebooks contain dozens of foreshortened figure studies, particularly of arms, legs, and the human head seen from extreme angles.
In the Last Supper, every figure is seen from a slightly different angle yet all read as spatially coherent — a feat of controlled perspective construction.