An Introduction to Space by Locale Media Company, LLC

Design & Communication | ARTS102

An Introduction t Space

Understanding visual art, design, communication and it’s functions through traditional and contemporary delivery.

Design & Communication | ARTS10

Design & Communication: SPACE THE PRINCIPLE OF SPACE IN VISUAL COMMUNICATION - OVERVIEW Many design problems require a designer to create the illusion of 3 dimensions on a 2D picture plane. Visual cues need to be given to the viewer about the nature of what the space in a composition represents. This chapter will discuss some of the qualities of illusional space and how to control it. Also, when discussing space, the principle of Scale must be included. Scale here refers to the relative size of objects to other objects in a composition, and is a major player in indicating depth. And, visual texture can play a role in the perception of space, and so we will look at that as well. A designer need to control the illusion of space or depth in an image, and the space created for the image will effect the overall message of the image being delivered. We can simplify the types of spaces into three types of space: Flat, Shallow, and Deep

Space

A composition with at space appears to have all shapes sitting directly on the picture plane, appearing to be side by side. It is space that has only two dimensions, height and width. It will tend to not be more for decorative or non-objective shapes, as most representations of objects will require the illusion of depth

Flat Space

In the Peter Halley painting on the previous page, hard edges and solid surfaces combine to compress the illusion of space or depth, leading the viewer to interpret the shapes as being next to each other on a at plane

The impact of the Kim MacConnel painting at right rests in the arrangement of colored shapes on a loose grid; altering it by applying techniques that would give it the illusion of three dimensions would likely lessen the impact.

Kim MacConnel, “28 Dove”, Acrylic on Canvas

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Shallow Space

Once shapes start to overlap one another, an illusion of space is created. If the stacking is minimal, or the focal elements occupy most of the picture plane and only a few techniques are used to give the illusion of space, a shallow space is created. In this painting by Pablo Picasso, the gure of the guitarist overlaps the shapes in the background; the gure of the guitarist appears to have depth through overlapping and shadow but the background is at and the same value and tone as the gure. The use of shallow space here forces the viewer to focus on the guitarist.

Pablo Picasso, “The Old Guitarist,” oil on canvas, 1903.

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Henri Matisse, “The Red Room,” Oil on canvas, 1908.

For more on Henri Matisse please visit http://www.henri-matisse.net/

Henri Matisse uses large elds of color and no use of shadow to create a atness in the painting below, but depth is indicated through the overlap of objects and the image of a window. From henrimatisse.org/, “The Dessert: harmony in red (The red room), 1908, is considered by some art historians to be Matisse's masterpiece. Matisse was greatly in uenced by the Post-Impressionists, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, and like Van Gogh was an ardent admirer of Japanese art and motifs. He developed his style using areas of at, brilliant and often unnatural colour and invariably outlined his forms in a manner similar to Van Gogh. This fauvist painting, like impressionism led by artist Claude Monet, has no central focal point. The painting initially was ordered as 'Harmony in Blue,' but Matisse was dissatis ed with the result, so he painted it over with his preferred red. Matisse turned to a motif common in the painting: a room decorated with vases, fruits and owers. Yet, as he wrote in 1908, "the basis of my thinking has not changed, but the

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very thinking has evolved and my means of expression have followed on." The luxuriant raspberry red fabric with its energetic twists of blue pattern seems to sink down from the wall, taking over the surface of the table and uniting it in a single whole, swallowing up the three-dimensional space of the room and masterfully con rming the decorative potential of the canvas surface. Matisse rst made such uncompromising use of this compositional device here, in The Red Room. But in af rming the atness of the red colour, the artist managed to create within it the impression of space, space within which the female gure bending over the vase could move and within which the sharp angled view of the chair seemed natural. The window, through which we see a green garden with owering plants, allows the eye to move into the depths of the canvas. The red room is a brilliant celebration of pattern and decoration. The rhythms of the foliage pattern on the tablecloth and wallpaper are echoed in the background through the window, uniting the interior with the cooler exterior.

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Deep Space

Compositions with deep space have more complexity; not only will overlap and stacking order play a role, but additional techniques will be employed including placement, size, scale, shadows, perspective, color, value and transparency. The space in these compositions may include a foreground, a middle ground, and a background, or some combination of the three In the painting to the right elements such as placement, size, scale, shadows, and perspective all work to create the illusion of deep space. The man and woman walking on the left are foreground; the man with the umbrella walking left to right is middle ground, and the buildings in the depth are background.

Gustave Caillebotte, “Paris Street in Rainy Weather,” 83.5” x 108.75”, oil on canvas, 187

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Creating the Illusion of Space

Creating the illusion of Spac There are a number of means of creating a three-dimensional illusion on a twodimensional picture plane by giving us cues that we respond to automatically. They are 1

Overla

Scal

Placemen

Shadow and modelin

Transparency and Translucenc

Aerial Perspectiv

Linear Perspectiv

Colo

In the Ruscha print to the right, deep space is created by perspective, overlap, scale, and

Ed Ruscha, “Standard Station”, silkscreen print, 1966

shadow

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Overlap When objects appear to be one on top of the other, making one shape appear closer to the viewer than the other, we call that overlap. The Pfaff collage below uses overlap of otherwise at shapes to create depth in the image. In the poster left, the overlapping beach towel forms over the water and sun shapes, indicated by color create a graphic and at illusion yet in keeping with summer beach festival content it advertises.

Studio Mut, Trieste Estate Summer Festival poster, 2016

Judy Pfaff, “Scopa #1,” Mixed adhesive plastics on Mylar, 35” x 47”, 1988

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Scale Similar shapes or recognized forms will tend to read as moving forward or backward in space as their size relationship to the other shapes changes. Bottom left, in the David Park painting, the larger size of the boy on the left pushes him forward visually from the bicycle rider on the right. In the painting “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth, top left, the size of the girl in the foreground is much larger than

Andrew Wyeth, “Christina’s World,”, 2’8” x 4’, tempera on board, 1948

the size of the buildings in the background, implying naturally that the girl is much closer to us visually than the buildings, creating a sense of deep space. David Park, “Kids on Bikes,” oil on canvas, 1951

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Shapes placed lower on the picture plane will tend to read as being closer than identical shapes placed higher on the plane The two blue shapes are identical. Does the lower one appear closer than the upper one

C H ASpace PTER 2 Placement & Hierarchical Proportion

Hierarchical proportion is a technique used in art, mostly in sculpture and painting, in which the artist uses unnatural proportion or scale to depict the relative importance of the gures in the artwork For example, in Egyptian times, people of higher status would sometimes be drawn or sculpted larger than those of lower status During the Dark Ages, people with more status had larger proportions than serfs Nebamun hunting birds in the marshes using cats, fragment of a scene from the tomb-chapel of Nebamun, Thebes, Egypt Late 18th Dynasty, around 1350 BC.

Otto III from the Gospels of Otto III, Reichenau Abbey in southern Germany, late 10th or early 11th centur

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A shape that casts a shadow implies form blocking light, thereby implying volume. Shadow on the shape implies the same In the painting below right, Rembrandt uses strong contrast of light and shadow to create the illusion of depth in the image Even though unrealistic and strongly contrasting colors are used in the image by Andy Warhol far right, a strong sense of depth is achieved because of the accurate and strong use of shadow on the Mao gure in the silkscreen

Rembrandt van Rijn, “The Night Watch,” oil on canvas, 1642

Andy Warhol, “Mao,” Silkscreen on paper, 1973

C H ASpace PTER 2 Transparency and Translucency

Ron Davis, “Green Beam”, 108” x 180” Acrylic on Canvas 1975

Transparency and translucency give the illusion that light is passing through an object, revealing the object(s) it overlaps. It relates directly to overlap discussed previously, though now elements from the object behind are revealed. Transparency reveals more detail than translucency, allowing us to see more of the detail of the object(s) it overlaps.

Ron Davis, “Green Beam”, 108” x 180” Acrylic on Canvas 1975

C H ASpace PTER 2 Aerial Perspective

Claude Lorrain, “Seaport at Sunset,” oil on canvas, 1639.

Claude Lorrain, “Port Scene with the Departure of Ulysses,” oil on canvas, 59”x47”, 1646

Based on the principle of diminishing contrast, objects at a distance will have less contrast and de nition than objects close up. This is a naturally occurring phenomenon, due to viewing through aerial haze created by things like dust, water vapor, pollutants, etc.. We are conditioned to read this as distance

Claude Lorrain (1604-1682) was known for his use of aerial perspective to create the illusion of deep space in his paintings. Notice how the contrast in the image becomes less as the implied space recedes in the distance. Note also the color softens and the edges become less de ned.

L USpace CTUS Depth of Field A related element of sharpness in an image is the photographic effect of depth of eld. A basic de nition of depth of eld is: the zone of acceptable sharpness within a photo that will appear in focus. In every picture there is a certain area of your image in front of, and behind the subject that will appear in focus This zone will vary from photo to photo. Some images may have very small zones of focus which is called shallow depth of eld. Others

may have a very large zone of focus which is called deep depth of eld. Depth of eld is controlled by factors of lens, aperture and distance which we will not cover here.

image. This use of selective detail can create depth in ooophotographic images.

A focused element will attract our attention more than an unfocused one. Photographers use this to direct the viewer to what they deem important in the image. We have also become conditioned through years of exposure to see the soft focus as an indicator of depth. This concept was used by artists prior to the development of lens optics to direct attention in an image by using less detail, contrast, and muted tones to create less important areas, while detail and contrast was used to create a focal point. Different media and intent, same effects for the viewer

The two remaining means of indicating space,Linear perspective and Color, are highly complex and developed in their entirety, Raphael Sanzio, “Phrygian Sybil,”, and an in-depth Ink on Paper, 1511-12 study of them would take a semester or more just to touch the surface of available content and theory. We will touch upon Linear Perspective here, but understand this is only the beginning for these systems.* Color will be examined in a following chapter

The Raphael drawing right uses lack of de nition in the left leg, right shoulder, and surrounding areas to direct our focus to the face ad the left arm moving forward in the

Sally Mann, Photograph

C H ASpace PTER 2 Linear Perspective Based on the principle of diminishing size, objects will be seen as smaller as distance increases through the use of converging parallel lines. Diminishing size is a naturally occurring phenomenon, as we see things as smaller as they are further away, but it can also be mathematical, as we can systematically plot an accurate reduction or increase in size using lines and points. A description for linear perspective could be “a mathematical system for representing threedimensional objects and space on a two-dimensional surface by means of intersecting lines that are drawn vertically and horizontally and that radiate from one point (one-point perspective) two points (two-point perspective) or several points on a horizon line as perceived by a viewer imagined in an arbitrarily xed position.” Dictionary.com Unabridged

Linear perspective is thought to have been devised about 1415 by Italian Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi and later documented by architect and writer Leon Battista Alberti in 1435. Prior to this time there was no known programmatic manner of indicating accurate space in a two dimensional image. To understand the very basic elements of perspective drawing please view: http://thevirtualinstructor.com/ onepointperspective.html One point perspective One point has only one dimension, we’ll call it depth, receding in space and therefore at an angle to the picture plane. Height and width remain parallel. One vanishing point, a point where parallel lines converge on the horizon line described in the tutorial above, is used for the image. All lines receding in space will converge there.

C H ASpace PTER 2 Linear Perspective

“In the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence is one of the best examples of the early Renaissance scienti c approach to creating the convincing illusion of space within a painting Perhaps the most signi cant aspect of this fresco is the way Masaccio makes use of one-point linear perspective to convey the sense that the images recedes back in space. The coffers on the ceiling create the orthogonal lines, and the vanishing point is at base of cross, which happens to be at the eye level of the viewer. This creates the

sense that the space we are looking at in the fresco is actually a continuation of the chapel space in which the fresco is painted.” Taken from ItalianRenaissance.org For more information please visit http://www.italianrenaissance.org/ masaccios-holy-trinity/ Here in one point perspective only one dimension recedes in space. Height and width remain parallel to the picture plane, only depth moves at an angle into the plane.

Masaccio, “Holy Trinity”, fresco,1424, fresco

C H ASpace PTER 2 Two-Point Perspective Two point has two dimensions receding in space and therefore at an angle to the picture plane. Height will remain parallel. Two vanishing points, indicating convergence points for width and depth, will lie on the horizon line at opposite ends of the picture plane. All lines receding in space will converge there. Architects use

perspective to accurately visualize their designs for structures The Frank Lloyd Wright drawings below are drawn in two point perspective. Here width and depth are at angles to the picture plane, while height remains a vertical and parallel to the picture plan

Frank Lloyd Wright, Detail of Thaxter Shaw House Living Area, 1906.

C H ASpace PTER 2 Terms and De nitions:

Al Held, “Piazza”, Acrylic on canvas, 1982

Space The three-dimensional void that elements occupy; the empty area between elements. Flat Space A space that has height and width only; usually represented by the picture plane itself. Shallow Space The illusion of limited depth; the imagery is only a slight distance back from the picture plane. Deep Space The illusion of great or unlimited depth; often a feature of landscapes. Can have some combination of foreground, middle ground and background. Overlap A depth cue, in which some shapes are in front of and partially hide or obscure others. Shadow The darker value on the surface of an object that is away from the source of light or obscured by another object.

Aerial Perspective The illusion of deep space in which distant objects appear to have less detail and contrast than objects in the foreground. Linear Perspective Based on the principle of diminishing size, objects will be seen as smaller as distance increases through the convergence of receding parallel lines. Transparency A visual quality in which an object or distant view can be seen clearly through a nearer object. Two forms overlap, but are seen in their entirety. Translucency A visual quality in which objects, forms or planes transmit and diffuse light, but with a greater degree of opacity that does not allow clear visibility through the object.

Objectives • Begin to visually communicate SPACE in a composition • Create the illusion of space in a design; use of 1-point perspective and valu • To continue to develop skills in successful design composition

Helpful Tip Please refer to your software instructions or use the Adobe help website for software users. Additional video tutorials have been provided for both software and analog users. Benchmark/research palm tree lined images in one point perspective for inspiration and ideas.

ASSIGNMENT PART 1: Using the principles learned so far, you will create a composition of a palm tree lined street, in one-point perspective. Emphasis will be on properly using a vanishing point on the horizon line, and the use of diminishing (atmospheric) contrast from front to back, illustrating receding space. Please review module and e-Book links to ensure you set up your one-point perspective properly with a horizon line and vanishing point

ASSIGNMENT PART 2 Please respond thoughtfully to the following questions regarding your artwork. Please write your answers in the “add comments” section of the drop box when uploading your image. Engage me as your instructor and audience by responding to the questions below as a self evaluation 1. Explain1-point perspective versus 2-point in your own words 2. What methods did you use to illustrate visual receding of palm trees? 3. What do you like about your nished desig 4. What can you do better next time

Please use a new document set at 8.5x11, horizontal or vertical as you choose. This image does not have to be complex. Sometimes simple form works very well here. However, you must accurately depict a one-point perspective drawing by using a horizon line and vanishing point, and show demising contrast for depth. Use googled art of palm trees or consider drawing your own. Use cast shadow and varying levels of value to complete the assignment. (please view all weekly links to content for instructions)

This assignment is worth 20 points. Here is the rubric for the assignment • following directions (25%) • inclusion of self evaluation (25%) • understanding of lesson concepts (25%) • creativity; clear, effective use of visual communication (25%

• Use black white and gray ONLY for this composition • Recall as objects recede, they should get smaller with less detai • Use texture - contrast palms or other elements in front with bac • Achieve Rhythm by linear repetition and repeated shap • Balance your image with good placement of visual weight

Please let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy

Save the le image as jpeg, png or pdf and upload to the assignment dropbox provided for Space

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Assignment: SPACE