Space in paintings

The effect of space in a painting is primarily the creation of the illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface. It is concerned with the width and depth, and with the interval and distance surrounding solid objects rather than their own volume. Artists use various techniques to help them achieve this, a key one being the geometrical system known as linear or single-viewpoint perspective. Diagonal lines of direction, called orthogonals, converge at what is called the vanishing point, which is most usually placed on a horizontal line about two-thirds of the way up the picture. Parallel lines are then drawn across at intervals which get smaller as they get nearer to the vanishing point. These create what are known as planes, and the surface of the picture itself is referred to as the picture plane. When objects are placed on these planes at different angles and in diminishing size, they appear to recede, and so an illusion of space is created. The front of the picture becomes like a pane of  glass through which you look as if into a box. The basic geometrical arrangement was originally discovered by Euclid in classical times and then formally revived by the architects Brunelleschi and Alberti during the Renaissance in fifteenth century Italy.

Another related technique, that of aerial perspective, was developed later in the same century by Leonardo da Vinci. Here, cool, recessive colours, like blues, greys and greens, are used in the backgrounds of paintings to increase the effect of distance. It was also discovered that a feeling of space can be enhanced if the larger objects in the foreground are painted in greater detail and the smaller ones in the background are made more blurred. Tonal variations can also help, by making the foregrounds or backgrounds of pictures darker or lighter in relation to one another.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there was an increased interest in the relationship between foreground and background, and in space that is more closely connected with the surface of the picture. Spatial distortion, multiple-viewpoint perspective and colour were used to create space. Also, there was exploration of the spatial possibilities of the area in front of the picture plane rather than behind it. In the work of Cezanne and Picasso, for instance, the space is demonstrated by the way that the angles of objects and the direction of their planes relate to one another, rather than to an overall geometrical structure, as in linear perspective. For this reason, they were able to incorporate many viewpoints at the same time and to delineate the space on the surface of the picture with little or no strictly perspectival recession.

Whilst the space in the picture itself is important, so also is the spectator's relationship to it. In single-viewpoint perspective, as the name implies, the spectator is expected to see from one angle only although this can be from above or below, as well as on the same level. Sometimes, artists employ multiple-viewpoint perspective, where one is made to see from several angles at once, and sometimes the space is between the spectator and the surface of the painting, rather than behind the picture plane.  And sometimes, as in illusionistic ceiling decorations, for instance, the spectatorno longer quite knows where the dividing line is between real and artificially created space.

Pictorial space, as it can be called, will vary, like everything else in painting, according to the artist's individual way of seeing.The different types of spatial interpretations are :
Linear perspective
Geometrical space
Imaginative space and illusionism
Aerial perspective
Space to walk about in : landscape
Spatial distortion : ignoring the middle distance
Multiple-viewpoint perspective
Space in front of the picture
Spatial disorientation
Historical and memorial space