CHAPTER 5 ____________________________ SPACE

Shape vs. Mass  Shape is a two-dimensional area.  It is a flat, enclosed area created when a line connects to enclose an area.  It can also be defined as an area that is surrounded by other shapes.  In addition, shapes can exist as areas that are filled with color or texture.

 Mass is a solid form that occupies three-dimensional volume.  To easily understand the difference between shape and mass, think of the difference between a square and a cube.

Negative and Positive Space (figure and ground)  Shapes can be positive shapes, or ‘figures,’ where we view them as standing out from the background.  The space that these shapes sit in (the background, but often referred to as the ground) can take on important forms itself, and the shapes we see that form out of this are called negative shapes.

Negative Space/ Shapes  Negative space can easily become an important shape based on how the positive shapes around it are positioned. This can be done largely and boldly, where the shapes are relatively easy to read, or on a very detailed scale, where the transformation is more subtle.  Figure/ground reversal is when the positive and the negative shapes hold equal visual importance. This makes it difficult to decide what you are looking at: your eye keeps recognizing one form as dominant, and then the other. This can make for a very intriguing design.

Is the figure the vase, or the two faces in profile?

Do you see a young lady, or an old woman?

Do you see the old man’s profile, or the man and woman standing in the archway?

Charles Allan Gilbert All is Vanity 1892 Do you see a human skull, or a woman admiring herself in a vanity mirror?

M.C. Escher is a master of figure/ground reversal.

Look how the white negative spaces between the birds at the top of the picture become the fish at the bottom of the picture, and vice a versa.

Representing 3D space on a 2D surface • In order to make an image that is created on a flat, twodimensional surface look like it has depth or space, the artist must rely on some form of illusion. • Many different techniques have been developed by artists to create the illusion of space. These methods are often used simultaneously to strengthen the illusion.

Representing 3D space on a 2D surface • Overlapping and scale • Shadows • Linear Perspective – One-point, two-point, and three-point – Trompe l’oeil

• Oblique Projection • Foreshortening • The near and far – foreground, middle ground and background

- Overlap and scale: when objects overlap, the one that sits on top appears to be in front of the other object. (The large green triangle in the lower right corner appears to be closer to us than the red squares that it overlaps.) - Objects of similar shape, but different size, can affect the way we understand space. The smaller green triangles appear farther away than the large one.

- However, even if a smaller object appears in front of a much larger one, we still perceive it as being closer. Look at the new, small green triangles that overlap the two large green ones.

Salvador Dalí, Archaeological Reminiscences of Millet's Angelus, 193335.

Shadows help to create the illusion of space. They help to place objects “in space.”

Linear Perspective • Linear perspective is a mathematical system for projecting the apparent dimensions of a three-dimensional object onto a flat surface, or the picture plane. • Developed in the Renaissance, perspective offered a methodical approach to depicting the rational reality perceived by artists in the 15th century. • Through perspective, the viewer is invited to enter an illusory world.

Linear Perspective as a Tool • Even though many recent philosophical and aesthetic theories challenge this conception of reality, perspective remains the most pervasive Western system for suggesting three-dimensionality on the two-dimensional surface. • Perspective is a tool for creating imagery, but it is not the only way to depict space. It creates a sense of spatial harmony, and provides a strong focal point.

Linear Perspective is Based on Five Basic Concepts: 1.

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Objects appear to diminish in size as they recede into the distance. Perspective is possible because the rate at which objects diminish is regular and consistent. The point at which objects disappear entirely is called the vanishing point. In basic one-point perspective and two-point perspective, all vanishing points are positioned on the eye-level, or horizon line, which is level with the artist’s eyes. Because all proportional relationships shift with each change in position, a fixed viewing position is an essential characteristic of linear perspective. Only a limited area is clearly visible from a fixed position. To accommodate a larger viewing area, you must move farther away from the object to be drawn. This expands the cone of vision and increases the area being viewed.

One-point perspective

Two-point perspective

Three-point perspective

Duccio, Annunciation of the Death of the Virgin, from the Maestá Altarpiece, 1308-11

In this perspective analysis, it is clear that the perspective is not creating a unified sense of space. The implied diagonal lines lead our eyes to many different vanishing points. As we study the architecture, it seems as though we would have to be standing in very different places to be able to see it from those angles.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, c. 1495-98. What kind of perspective is in use here?

Shown in this perspective analysis, Leonardo da Vinci successfully uses one-point perspective to create a sense of harmonious and unified space. The vanishing point is placed at Christ’s head, making him the un-mistakable focal point of the composition.

Raphael, School of Athens, 1510-11. Linear perspective was widely used at the time (during the Renaissance). The one-point perspective used here creates a strong sense of unified, “logical” space. It also allows for a strong focal point at the vanishing point.

Jan Vredeman de Vries, architectural rendering, c. 1562

Gustave Caillebotte, Place de l’Europe on a Rainy Day, 1876-77

Gustave Caillebotte, Perspective Analysis: The main building on the left is created with two-point perspective, but the artist uses other vanishing points and perspectives for different parts of the painting, creating a far more complex image. Because the perspective is more varied, our eye does not “land” on one specific spot when we look at this image.

Salvador Dali, Christ of St. John of the Cross, 1951 This dynamic image uses threepoint perspective to help the cross appear at though it is passing right over our heads. The space that the cross hangs in seems like an entirely different world than that of the landscape at the bottom of the painting.

Hogarth uses multiple perspectives that work against each other to create a satire that criticizes the logic of linear perspective. At first glance, the picture appears to show a country scene that recedes into space. However, as one examines the different areas of the picture plane, the angles do not make sense together.

M.C. Escher, example of how multiple perspectives can produce fantastic absurdity

Set of the movie Labyrinth is inspired by Escher’s drawing, in order to produce a confusing and dream-like environment.

Julian Beever is a British artist who uses perspective to masterfully create 3-D illusions on sidewalks. His technique is an example of a trompe l’oeil, meaning “to fool the eye,” as the illusion is so convincing.

Julian Beever

Julian Beever

Julian Beever, the illusion only works from a fixed viewpoint – one of the rules of perspective.

Oblique Projection • Oblique projection is a system for projecting space, commonly found in Japanese art. • In oblique projection, the front of the object or building is parallel to the picture plane, and all the sides, which recede at an angle, remain parallel to each other. • This is different than linear perspective, where the sides converge towards the vanishing point, and in doing so, do not remain parallel to one another.

The Three Sacred Shrines at Kumano: Kumano Mandala, Japan, Kamakura period (1185-1333), c. 1300. Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk. The oblique projection shows the buildings receding back into space at an angle. Note how all the angled sides are parallel to each other. This image also utilizes scale to depict distance and space. The building at the bottom of the piece is larger, and is intended to be closer to us, whereas the building at the top is the furthest away, and the smallest.

Foreshortening • Foreshortening is when the dimensions of the closer extremities are adjusted in order to make up for the distortion created by the point of view. • Photographs show the dramatic visual effects of no foreshortening. The objects in the immediate foreground appear ridiculously large compared to objects in the background, even if they are part of the same thing (example: large feet close to us, small head further away).

Photographer unknown, Man with Big Shoes, c. 1890. As the camera captures three-dimensional space onto a twodimensional surface with a high degree of accuracy, space can sometimes become distorted. Here, where the camera was placed at the feet of a man lying down on a couch, the feet, much closer to us than the man’s head, seem overwhelmingly large.

Kurt Anno, Untitled, 2011. The photograph shows the a similar distortion, causing the feet to look disproportional, and even silly.

Artistic Use of Foreshortening • Artists can choose to “correct” this distortion, enabling the image to appear more harmonious and unified in scale. • In foreshortening, the visual distortion is often drastic, and artists working in different media can make up for such distortions in ways that photographers cannot.

Andrea Mantegna, The Dead Christ, c. 1501; In order to avoid any comical appearance of size distortion when depicting such serious subject matter, Mantegna chooses to not follow accurate proportions. Our eyes are drawn to the story, rather than Christ’s large feet.

The Near and Far • The foreground is the area that is close to us: it is right before our eyes. Objects in the foreground will appear larger than similar ones in the background, and the level of visual detail usually is stronger on objects in the foreground. • The background is the area that is far away; objects seem to be placed with far more space between themselves and our position.

• Systems such as linear perspective need to show a consistent pattern between the foreground, middle ground, and background. Other methods of depicting space are not bound to such limitations. Many modern artists choose to blur the clear-cut boundaries between what is far away, and what is close by, to create mysterious and interesting images.

Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando), Moon Pine, Ueno, 1856. The large object in the foreground coupled with the distant background seem to allow the middle space to “disappear.” This flattening of space proved to be inspirational and attractive to European modernist painters, who found the rules of perspective to be limiting and stifling to the imagination.

Janine Antoni, Touch, 2002. Video still. The distance between the near and far (her walking and the horizon line of the ocean) is collapsed through an illusion with a tightrope line. She describes this as an impossible place that represents what is always in front of us (the horizon), and a hopeful image about the future and the imagination.

Modern Approaches to Art • One of the most important reasons for artists trying to visually create three dimensions on a two-dimensional space is to make the world more intelligible, or understood. • Modern artists have challenged the organizational rules of depicting 3D into 2D, and with this they challenge the intellectual concept of how we understand reality. • The choice to embrace and utilize complex and chaotic visual choices is a way of saying that the real world is complex and chaotic. To these artists, overly ordered and organized compositions falsely try to convince us we have everything under control.

Umbo (Otto Umbehr), Weird Street, 1928 The artist purposely inverted his image, as he recognized the power of the shadows. The shadows now seem more animated and life-like than the figures themselves.

Paul Strand, Abstraction, Porch Shadows, 1916. Odd points of view, extreme close-ups, and radical cropping all work together in this photograph. No single object is wholly visible. As a result, we focus more on the patterns of light and dark than on the scene itself.

Henri Matisse, Harmony in Red (The Red Room), 1908-09. Matisse essentially eliminates 3D space by joining different surfaces with the same color, and removing contour lines that would serve as boundaries between one space and another. His vague suggestions of spatial boundaries invite our imaginations to interpret what we see.

Paul Cézanne, Mme. Cézanne in a Red Armchair, 1877. Cézanne is less interested in depicting an accurate representation of the figure. He would rather emphasize the design of the canvas and the activity of the painting itself, through the play of the patterns and color. We see on the woman’s skirt, Cézanne has abandoned the directional lines that would inform us of the shapes and spatial relations of the woman’s body. The striped pattern on her skirt is flattened, rather than depicting illusionistic cross-contour lines.

. Julie Mehretu Multiple spaces and places are combined and overlapped to create dynamic compositions. She describes her work as investigating the “multifaceted layers of place, space, and time that impact the formation of personal and communal identity”. She traces things such as maps of streets, architectural plans, and stadiums, combining them with lines to show movement, and marks from graffiti, cartoons, and other signs of contemporary life.

Journal Assignment: Collage Project #1 Alter the space in your chosen image through cutting, pasting, and/or combining with other paper. (flattened space, multiple perspectives, shadows, foreshortening) You may draw out your idea first before committing to glue. If you finish, make a second one that uses positive and negative space to reverse figure and ground.