Perspective is vital in artistic composition. It provides the artist with a method of capturing the three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface. Attempts to evolve a system of perspective are thought to have begun in Ancient Greece. The process was further developed and recorded in the Renaissance by famous artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Leon Battista Alberti. By the time of the seventeenth century the process of using perspective in painting would have been very familiar to the artists featured in this Dutch Landscapes exhibition.

Find out more about the process of perspective with our two interactive games and discover:

• How linear perspective works.
• How some artists struggled with the use of perspective in their compositions.

Or why not explore how artists composed landscape paintings in the seventeenth century and then have a go at composing you own landscape.