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

ARAS Connections Issue 2, 2012
such a personality has “depth” |6|, “an interior space to put beliefs in” |7|, “an
inside, a space where things can be held” |8|, “the capacity to accept paradox” (to
contain opposites) |9|, “both room and strength” |10|, and both “originality and
the acceptance of tradition as the basis for invention” |11|.
Because of the profound parallels between monumental art and an
evolving personality, I argue, monumental art provides a visual portrait of an
evolving personality just as myth, as Freud and Jung both showed, provides a
narrative portrait of an evolving personality |12| |13|. An evolving personality is
perhaps humankind's most important creation; an underlying purpose of both
myth and art is to help us achieve it |14| |15|. I demonstrate here that
monumental art must have represented the evolving personality since at least
35,000 BC. Thus to understand monumentality is to better understand the
human personality and its history.
The history of pictorial space
Below, I have listed some periods and named some painters. You can use
this list to find pictorial space in museums and art books.
Plastic form first appears in sculpture from the late Paleolith. Then it
appears in Cycladic sculpture and in pre-classical Greek sculpture. Classical
Greek sculpture is less plastic because of its emphasis on realism. Plastic form
also appears in Sumerian, African, and pre-Columbian sculpture, in Persian
miniatures, in Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic art, and in Flemish painting.
The Renaissance began a more scientific trend in art. Painters became
interested in realism, perspective and light and shadow and they were distracted
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