ИСТИНА

There are various systems of space representation on picture plane. None of them can provide a complete reconstruction of real three-dimensional space, but all of them, as shown by Boris Rauschenbach (1985), represent different aspects of our internal visual space. Yet the central perspective system, in addition to this representation, produces an image similar to our external view: one can reconstruct the real space relationships among depicted objects via relative values of angles at which we see them. So, the perception of the central perspective is based on the angular values of depicted objects. Theoretically, we can imagine another external-view system that uses absolute size values instead of angular. This hypothetical system should depict objects in their natural appearance – in life-size. Probably, such system has never existed in painting, even though the painting has the maximum freedom of choice of a perspective system. All the more, in the cinema, that is strictly bound by the central perspective only, the existence of such system seems to be very unlikely. Nevertheless, film may produce a cultural reception, to some extent corresponding to the life-size system. The first purpose of the paper is to prove that the early film rather relied upon the life-size reception which means that “the images of actors who appear to be in the picture plane … should be full size, or about 6 feet tall” (Brewster and Jacobs 1997: 166). This requires an existence of two consistent standards: the standard of the relative height of principal characters in shots, and the standard of the screen sizes. Thus, the paper argues for the life-size hypothesis using measurements of early shots compositions and with statistics on the screen sizes in hundreds cinema theatres of the early years. Secondly, the paper briefly traces the rudiments of the life-size reception in the subsequent part of history of film as well as in painting. In particular, the relationship between painting and the reception is analyzed through the data of characters’ sizes in thousands canvases. At last, the paper attempts to uncover the psychological genesis of the life-size reception – namely, to explain it through the model of the perceptual space based on the size constancy.