Well, the article linked to implies that the reason for the flat aspect of the artwork was that they were more interested in strongly conveying themes and concepts than they were reproducing what the eye sees. The article compares it to a modern comic strip. Whether they "couldn't" draw perspective, or were just uninterested, I don't know. I believe it was the Greeks in the 6th(?) century BC who were the first to use linear perspective in their art.

Reeks of oversimplification and hand-waving explanations. The Egyptians clearly understood very advanced geometry and methods to measure the world.

Everything the Egyptians did was intentional.

How could they build statues if they could only reason in 2d space? That makes no sense.

In a way many of their creations are a combination of spacetime(3d and time) accompanied by 2d storytelling as a form of narrative much like we write on the internet except maybe more comic book like.

That sounds reasonable. Until the rules of perspective were understood, artists were mostly quite poor at drawing realistic scenes. It wasn't until 1415 that the rules of perspective were thoroughly described, and the discovery dramatically improved the quality of art that was created after.

http://www.essentialvermeer.com/technique/perspective/histor...

Do elementary school kids even understand what perspective is?

Kids aren't idiots, they just had too little time to learn everything. I've had perspective drawing in art classes in elementary school and nobody had problems understanding it after 10 minute introduction.

Have you seen the willy coyote cartoon with a road painted on a rock? It uses perspective, and kids aged 7 understand what happens.

> Kids aren't idiots, they just had too little time to learn everything.

These are wise words right there.

I don't know if you're punning or serious here.

If you're serious, you can teach elementary school kids to draw with perspective.

Yes. Not unusual for a first grader to have a basic understanding of it. Naming 3d shapes (pyramids, cylinders, cubes) is kindergarten level stuff.

If my memory of carrying around a book on the subject during my family’s visit to Washington, DC during the Bicentennial is accurate, I had learnt some basics of perspective drawing at the age of five.

Some of them do, some of them don't. I think I first learned about it in 3rd grade or so.