Element:
SPACE
The word ‘space’ comes from the Latin ‘spatium’ and suggests ‘room, area or depth’
Element:
SPACE
Study of pepper pencil on paper, 11 x 14 in. Jim Chapman.
The four spacial dimensions*
h
Width
pt
Height Width Depth Time, motion, sequence
e
De
1. 2. 3. 4.
Tim
Height
If a slab of concrete drops on your foot, you will notice it. If a drawing of a slab hits your foot, you probably won’t notice. That’s the essential difference in 2-D and 3-D work. In 2-D work, there’s a suggestion of space or mass, while in 3-D there really is mass. Mass in 3-D is weight and volume confined within a given space. It’s what gives a sense of heft, form or solidity. In 2-D work, a good way to infer space and mass is using a progression of clearreading values, like visual stairs that the eye can climb or descend. That optically pulls us into space and then brings us back out again. In the diagram below, notice how any configuration of the value-shapes produces an optical feeling of space. There’s the sense that you could ‘crawl through’ the boxes because they seem to have dimension. This is the primary optical illusion used in 2-D work. This sense of space can also be implied using color, texture, scale and other ways, but using value is the most obvious and dramatic way to suggest mass.
Almost any art department in the world offers classes in 2-D, 3-D and 4-D. This is what each means specifically: 2-D = Height x Width 3-D = Height x Width x Depth 4-D = Heigth x Width X Depth X Time
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