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

ARAS Connections Issue 2, 2012
relationships the painting does not vibrate. The beam above the woman's head
makes no sense in the overall structure. The strong backward movement from
table to figure is not balanced; the table pushes forward and the figure falls
backwards to create a hole in the surface of the canvas. There is an illusion of real
space as though the woman were seen through a window frame. The figure seems
to shrink.
In El Greco's painting, the diagonal back from the lower-left corner to the
upper-right corner is contained by the diagonal forward across the sleeves. The
table and book in the foreground are pushed down and flattened, while the
Cardinal's upper body looms close to the picture plane. There is a major tension
between the planes of the book and the red cloak. The painting is like a relief (see
Michelangelo). The surface of the canvas is alive. All forms are related to it. The
space, for example between hands and face, is contained in relation to the
surface. The figure expands massively.
This comparison shows how pictorial space was weakened by the influence
of the Renaissance. Caravaggio's concern for light and realism led painting in the
direction of illustration. El Greco retained the formal order of Byzantine art.
Plate 10: Indian, Vijayanagar period and Carpeaux
In Yashoda and Krishna there is a strong sense of the cube from which the
figures are sculpted. Relative to the dimensions of that cube, I see, between the
masses, many proportionate distances and tensions. For example, I see tensions
between the torsos of mother and child, between the two heads, between the
mother's breasts, and between the mother's knees.
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