Casqued

Antonio Tempesta
Augustus
(series, Roman Emperors)
1596
etching
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Louis Millenet
Athena
ca. 1885
enamel plaque
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Adolph Menzel
Armoured Tomb Statue of Ludwig I
in Bayern Cathedral, Munich
1889
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Nicoletto da Modena
Mars
ca. 1500-1510
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael
Athena
ca. 1510-20
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Salvator Rosa
Antique Soldier
ca. 1657-58
etching and drypoint
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Adamo Scultori after Giulio Romano
Mars attended by Winged Putto
before 1585
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Giovanni Battista Scultori
after Giulio Romano
Athena
1538
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Giovanni Francesco Penni
Archangel Raphael subduing Demon
ca. 1520
drawing
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Joseph Heintz the Elder after Paolo Veronese
Galloping Warrior
ca. 1587-89
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Antonio Salamanca
Artemisia
(sister and consort of Mausolus)
ca. 1540-50
etching and engraving
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

attributed to Jacques de Gheyn II
Half-Length Study of Warrior
before 1629
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Study of Warrior
before 1666
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous French Artist
Study of a Soldier
ca. 1600-1650
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Ferdinand Bol
Portrait of a Man in Armour
ca. 1655-57
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Johann Wilhelm Meil
Helmet with Plumes
1779
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

The illusions of art presuppose recognition; to repeat the phrase from Philostratus, "No one can understand the painted horse or bull unless he knows what such creatures are like."  The mistake which has led so much theorizing on art into the bog is in thinking that there must be means of representing "appearances" or even "space" as such.  It is our knowledge, or more precisely our guess,  that makes us interpret the small horse or bull in many a picture as a distant horse or bull.  It is not for nothing, therefore, that perspective creates its most compelling illusion where it can rely on certain ingrained expectations and assumptions on the part of the beholder.  The Baroque decorator's illusion of painted ceilings or architecture works so well because those paintings represent what might, after all, be real.  Every care is taken to blur the transition between the solidly built and the flatly painted, and we continue to interpret the one in terms of the other.  It is for similar reasons that Renaissance painters liked to suggest depth through the rendering of tiled pavements.  Assuming as we must that the pavements are flat and the tiles identical units, we are compelled to read their progressive diminution as recession.  But here, as always, the impression of depth is entirely due to our share, our assumption, of which we are rarely aware.  In a similar way, modern poster artists often rely on our expectations of the normal letter form to give us the impression of letters or words arranged in depth or coming toward us with aggressive force.  It is an effect which would be lost on someone who did not know the conventions of lettering.  

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)