The graphics of Mies van der Rohe were studies in reduction. His famous collage drawings of glass skyscrapers were ghostly and ethereal, using charcoal to explore the reflection and transparency of the modern material palette. The modernist graphic history is one of black and white, sans-serif fonts, and the reduction of architecture to its essential geometric solids.
By 450 BC, builders used parallel lines to imply depth, a precursor to modern perspective.