Pictorial Space throughout Art History: Cézanne and ... - ARAS

ARAS Connections Issue 2, 2012
Why is pictorial space important in art?
Painting combines representation, concept, symbolic meaning, color,
texture, and line. Each adds pleasure and meaning. The organization of space is
only one component and because I focus on it alone, I do not mean to deny the
importance of all the other components.
Consider two contradictory views of painting. The first is that a painting is
like a window onto a piece of the outside world, onto a scene, or a person, or a
story, or a symbol, or a concept. In this view the interest lies in that which is
depicted while the painting itself serves only as a frame and an invisible surface,
both of which can be ignored as a clear window is ignored. The structure of the
world depicted, therefore, need not be consistent with the flat rectangle of the
canvas.
The second view is that the painting itself is the object of interest. In that
case a criterion of quality is that it be structurally self-consistent. Since the
overall form is limited by the flat surface and the four sides of the rectangle, it
follows that everything introduced into the painting must be related to these
limits. This leads to pictorial space. When two marks are placed on the canvas
there is always a spatial effect between them. If the spatial effect is contained
within the limits of the flat rectangle then the painting is already plastic.
If a painting is to be a fully unified work of art then the window model of
painting is untenable. If a painting is not related to its own overall form then it
functions like a fragment of prose describing a scene, rather than a whole poem
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