Space to Content

Some examples below highlight the relationship of space to content. Some elements to consider are:

SCALE- Size as it relates to scale is very important. The space within a small paper can be infinitely grand and vice versa. Relationships of elements and marks create this relationship.

Large marks make the space feel small, tiny marks make it feel large. Massive architecture can dwarf the people that inhabit it. By orchestrating these relationships unique space can be created.

MOVEMENT- Space can function as a constant for the passage of time. In a drawing the space can be frozen and the movement of people (etc) can be contrasted against it. Space can be depicted as static, unmoving, fixed as other elements play out within it.

GAZE- Space can be created, not to provide a backdrop for a narrative, but to hold the viewers gaze; a place for it to enter. This allows the viewer to be the active participant and not solely an audience.

Piranesi

David Levine

Gustav Diore, from Dante's Divine Comedy

Arthur Melville

Rackstraw Downes

360 on Location

When encountering space we only see a portion of the full view. Limited by our cone of vision the brain works to weave together separate pictures in to one of totality of our surroundings. If one could see space all around them simultaneously, our concept of space would be very different. Rules of perspective would change and time might operate differently. Below are some examples that relate to this approach of depicting space.

The first example is a brief example of a large tradition of Chinese Scroll Painting. Artists have used this long horizontal format in various ways. Some depict a normal landscape view, other play out a narrative in successive scenes, and still others depict the passage of time from one end of the scroll to the other (Seasons change from one side to another.)

Ancient Chinese Ink Painting

The photos sent back by the Pathfinder Rover on Mars were taken and pieced together to create a large panorama. Notice the uneven overlap of picture edges, yet the image remains unbroken.

Mars Rover

Mars Rover

A 360 Photo in which space warps around the photographer. Notice the difference of the sun and shadow as you scan across the image.

360 landscape

Below are some student examples- unfortunately, the whole image was to long to use. A detail is provided and displays some of the spatial warping.

Student Example

Student Example

Guernica Exploded

Guernica- Pablo Picasso 1937

Picasso created this painting in response to the April 26, 1937 bombing of Guernica in the Basque region of Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The bombing was carried out by German and Italian bombers at the request of the Spanish Nationalist Forces. Guernica has come to be a major anti-war symbol depicting the tragedy and suffering of people, particularly civilians

Lena Gieseke created an animated analysis of Guernica the Picasso Cubist masterpiece. Click here to see. Below please post your comments, impressions, reflections on the animated artwork and the painting. Consider how space has been used for emotional purposes, energy, politics, aesthetics, etc.

SPACE

The essential challenge of all artists working in 2 dimensions is the usage of space. It can be a challenge quickly addressed by acknowledging the flatness of the surface as modern painters did or delve into a myriad of choices of how space can be crafted. Such choices presented in art history include (but not limited to) realism/ illusionism, Byzantine, Pre- Renaissance, Renaissance, Cubism. All unavoidably deal with the issue of space selection, meaning and represent the thinking of that era.

John Singer Sargent

To understand this issue we first must look at the subjective nature of engaging space visually as humans. At best we can see just under 180 degrees ( an admittedly incomplete perception of the space that surrounds us.) Below are two examples from John Montagues's Basic Drawing Perspective.

Again remember our brain is comprehending information, in multiple ways, from an image projected upside down within our eye. From this information the brain uses conditioned responses to particular appearances of shapes and colors to process quickly. In this manner vision and it's subject are perceived. The very nature of the term perception, is the ability of the mind to grasp what is seen. The challenge in space depiction is the utilization of depth perception as it relates to:

COLOR (temperature, intensity, value)

CLARITY (focus vs blur)

SCALE ( relative size of objects)

SEQUENCING ( overlapping and placement of objects)

SHAPE DEFORMATION (the regularized shape in perspective and how the mind grasps these shapes as the vacillate between flatness and form)

Space and it's depiction is a loaded choice as it highlights and consciously omits/ edits certain information as it's expression needs. We all generally grow up being amazed by the simulacra ofillusionistic space, yet have unintentionally disregarded the multiple possibilities that space offers. It is the artists decision to make use of what best suits their "message" and equally important, enhances their perception of space, a skill necessary in engaging with all forms of 2 dimensional work whether it is advertising, fine art, design, illustration, photography. Below are examples highlighting some artists approach to handling space within these terms.

Thomas Moran

George Inness

Richard Parkes Bonington

The previous examples showcase an extreme depiction of spatial recession in the landscape format, foreground, middle ground and background. Atmospheric perspective is employed as we see colors of a more neutral hue in the background as well as cooler color and less contrasting values. Scale changes are evident as well as overlapping objects.

Richard Deibenkorn

In this example of Deibenforn we can see a tension between the flatness of the space and three dimensionality. It is a heavy "shape" composition which leans toward flatness, yet he employed a knowledge of color and values in spacial recession. Notice the shadows on the pavement.

Lucian Freud

Joan Semmel

Philip Pearlstein

The above examples display an approach to the figure in space through more traditional techniques. We see clear usage of sequencing particularly in Pearlstein (notice the mannequin behind, the in front of the model.) In the Semmel example she plays with the mirror (and extends the space) using color and scale. Notice the taper of the legs and the overlap. In the Freud example, we see clear overlaping of the body, foreshortening, color and scale (thigh/ knee to head ratio.)