Space
By Mark Grubb
Space is all around us and can be defined as the emptiness or area between, around, above, below, or contained within objects. The water contained in the glass takes up space just as the air does. Actual space is a three-dimensional volume that can be empty or filled with objects.
According to Talentteacher.com, the following principles can be used to describe space:
1. The word we use to describe the area or room on a surface is space.
2. The subject or the emphasized part of a work of art is most often the positive space.
3. The space which is unused or is not emphasized in art work is most often the negative space.
4.
The space which is emphasized in a free standing sculpture is most often
three-dimensional space.
5. In free standing sculpture, the negative space is often made up of air or what is behind the sculpture.
It this example, the sculpture is framed by the archway made of brick. The statue fills the three-dimensional, positive space. The bricks in the background make up the negative space behind it.
Positive and negative space can also be displayed on a two-dimensional medium. Positive space is created by objects that are seen as a main element appearing to be in front of the background. Negative space is the area that surrounds the shapes.
The
hand is seen as positive space even though it is the shadow of an image.
The light actually creates the negative space around the shadow.
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The overlapping of shapes also illustrates space. When one shape continues behind another, it gives depth to the object. This can be seen in patterns like on the chair to the left. It can also be demonstrated by random patterns as with the papers on the right. In both cases, you know the objects continue behind the overlapping ones, giving the picture depth. |
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Fleming defines space as a volume available for occupation by a form; an extent, measurable or infinite that can be understood as an area or distance capable of being used negatively or positively.
As
with Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper (described below), this picture
also uses negative space in the distance as a vanishing point to which
the ski lift is going. The object is framed so that the expanse of the
trees stretching up into the unseen can be fully realized.
Online Examples:
I have chosen the following examples because I find that they represent two different aspects of space. The first is a computer generated picture that allows you to see and feel the space surrounding the object. The second is Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. It parallels well with the picture of the ski lift above in the use of space as a vanishing point.
1) Vincent Van Stahl's Blue Room 2002 is computer art, 16 x 9 inches, available through Vincent Van Stahl in Stuttgart, Germany
Van Stahl's artwork is described as "Fractal Surrealism, in the Dali style of phantastic form within a realistic environment." Van Stahl combines six years of experience from software development with the power of creative vision. Blue Room is described to be "A study of space, and the mixture of two different spaces."
2) Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper (1495-1498) 460 x 880 cm tempera on plaster, Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Refectory), Milan
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/L/leonardo/lastsupp.jpg.html
The Last Supper is an excellent example of how negative space can be used as a vanishing point. All of the walls and ceiling beams converge in the exact middle directly behind the head of Christ in a perfectly realized linear perspective.
Bibliography
Art definitions
offered by Pacbell's Knowledge Network
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/art2/artspeak/index.html,
click on Visual Glossary, click on Complete Glossary, scroll
down to Space.
The personal
web page dedicated to teaching art by Joe Hardy Broome II
http://www.talentteacher.com/artfacts.html
The art class of Mountain Pointe High School
http://www.tuhsd.k12.az.us/Mountain_Pointe_HS/art/design_tech/artterms.html#S
The art section
of a CyberSchool
http://www.cyberschool.k12.or.us/~wallace/artline/art_elements_are_the_building_bl.htm,
scroll down to Space.
Fleming, E. Arts and Ideas. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991