{"id":2742,"date":"2017-08-07T05:40:34","date_gmt":"2017-08-07T05:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/course.oeru.org\/art101\/?page_id=2742"},"modified":"2017-08-07T05:40:34","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T05:40:34","slug":"space","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/course.oeru.org\/art101\/learning-pathways\/the-visual-language-artistic-elements\/space\/","title":{"rendered":"Space"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Introduction<\/h2>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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Space is the empty area surrounding real or implied objects. Humans categorize space: there is outer space, that limitless void we enter beyond our sky; inner space, which resides in people\u2019s minds and imaginations, and personal space, the important but intangible area that surrounds each individual and which is violated if someone else gets too close. Pictorial space is flat, and the digital realm resides in cyberspace. Art responds to all of these kinds of space.\n<\/p>\n

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Perspective<\/h2>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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Clearly artists are as concerned with space in their works as they are with, say, color or form. There are many ways for the artist to present ideas of space. Remember that many cultures traditionally use pictorial space as a window to view realistic subject matter through, and through the subject matter they present ideas, narratives and symbolic content. The innovation of linear perspective<\/b>, an implied geometric pictorial construct dating from 15th century Europe, affords us the accurate illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat surface, and appears to recede into the distance through the use of a horizon line<\/b> and vanishing points<\/b>.\n<\/p>\n

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Oliver Harrison, One-point perspective with horizon and vanishing point<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper<\/i>, 1498, fresco, Santa Maria della Grazie, Milan, Italy<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

One-point perspective<\/b> occurs when the receding lines appear to converge at a single point on the horizon and used when the flat front of an object is facing the viewer. Note: Perspective can be used to show the relative size and recession into space of any object, but is most effective with hard-edged three-dimensional objects such as buildings.\n<\/p>\n

A classic Renaissance artwork using one point perspective is da Vinci’s ‘”The Last Supper”‘ fresco. Da Vinci composes the work by locating the vanishing point directly behind the head of Christ, thus drawing the viewer\u2019s attention to the center. His arms mirror the receding wall lines, and, if we follow them as lines, would converge at the same vanishing point.
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Oliver Harrison, Two-point perspective with horizon and vanishing points<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Two-point perspective<\/b> occurs when the vertical edge of a cube is facing the viewer, exposing two sides that recede into the distance, one to each vanishing point. <\/p>\n

Gustave Caillebotte\u2019s Paris Street in Rainy Weather<\/i> uses two-point perspective to give an accurate view to an urban scene. The artist\u2019s composition, however, is more complex than just his use of perspective. The figures are deliberately placed to direct the viewer\u2019s eye from the front right of the picture to the building\u2019s front edge on the left, which, like a ship\u2019s bow, acts as a cleaver to plunge both sides toward the horizon. In the midst of this visual recession a lamp post stands firmly in the middle to arrest our gaze from going right out the back of the painting. Caillebotte includes the little metal arm at the top right of the post to direct us again along a horizontal path, now keeping us from traveling off the top of the canvas. As relatively spare as the left side of the work is, the artist crams the right side with hard-edged and organic shapes and forms in a complex play of positive and negative space.
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Oliver Harrison, Three-point perspective (with vanishing points above and below the horizon line shown at the same time)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Third Court of the Topkapi Palace, from the Hunername, 1548, Ottoman miniature painting, Topkap\u0131 Saray\u0131 M\u00fczesi, Istanbul<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Three-point perspective<\/b> is used when an artist wants to project a \u201cbird\u2019s eye view\u201d, that is, when the projection lines recede to two points on the horizon and a third either far above or below the horizon line. In this case the parallel lines that make up the sides of an object are not parallel to the edge of the ground the artist is working on (paper, canvas, etc).\n<\/p>\n

The perspective system is a cultural convention well suited to a traditional western European idea of the \u2018truth\u2019, that is, an accurate, clear rendition of observed reality. Even after the invention of linear perspective, many cultures traditionally use a flatter pictorial space, relying on overlapped shapes or size differences in forms to indicate this same truth of observation. Examine the miniature painting of the Third Court of the Topkapi Palace<\/i> from 14th century Turkey to contrast its pictorial space with that of linear perspective. It\u2019s composed from a number of different vantage points (as opposed to vanishing points), all very flat to the picture plane. While the overall image is seen from above, the figures and trees appear as cutouts, seeming to float in mid air. Notice the towers on the far left and right are sideways to the picture plane. As \u2018incorrect\u2019 as it looks, the painting gives a detailed description of the landscape and structures on the palace grounds.\n<\/p>\n

After nearly five hundred years using linear perspective, western ideas about how space is depicted accurately in two dimensions went through a revolution at the beginning of the 20th century. A young Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, moved to Paris, then western culture\u2019s capital of art, and largely reinvented pictorial space with the invention of Cubism, ushered in dramatically by his painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon<\/a><\/i> in 1907. He was influenced in part by the chiseled forms, angular surfaces and disproportion of African sculpture (refer back to the Male figure<\/i> from Cameroon) and mask-like faces of early Iberian artworks.
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Picasso and Cubism<\/h2>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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Use the following links to learn more about:\n<\/p>\n