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

ARAS Connections Issue 2, 2012
Canaletto creates the illusion of the open space of a river, thereby violating
the structural unity of the painting. My pleasure is as though I had such a view
from my hotel window. The pre-Renaissance painter creates pictorial space in a
self-contained pictorial world.
Plate 6: Gris and Braque
In Braque's painting a main diagonal recedes across the black plane to the
upper plane at the one-o'clock position. Its force is contained by a diagonal which
thrusts forward and down across the vertical and then the horizontal blue planes.
Within this framework there are smaller forces and variations in spacing,
all woven together into unity. For example, the vertical blue planes pull left, up,
and back, balancing the horizontal blue planes which pull right, down, and
forward. The two vertical blue planes are separated by a small distance in depth,
in contrast to the larger depth between the vertical and the horizontal blue
planes. The divisions of the rectangle (or oval) made by the upper edges of the
blue planes are in proportion to each other.
There is a movement into depth from the central, tilted, light-brown
rectangle to the darkest brown background of the oval at 2 o'clock. The
movement circles behind the upper planes and comes forward again over the
vertical blue planes and the central black rectangle.
There is a movement into depth from the central, tilted, light-brown
rectangle to the darkest brown background of the oval at 2 o'clock. The
movement circles behind the upper planes and comes forward again over the
vertical blue planes and the central black rectangle. I could slide my fingers freely
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