If the concept of negative space eludes you or you don’t quite see what the big deal about it is, consider this painting. Notice how the lake pushes against the pine trees. I don’t mean the actual lake, of course. I mean the surface on the painting that represents the lake.
Notice how this technique flattens the 3-dimensional landscape into a 2-dimensional surface. That sounds so banal, doesn’t it, and the word “flatten” sounds so blah.
But the visual thrill of this technique is undeniable. Even after you have it figured out, your mind loves playing this game: now it’s foreground, now it’s background.
Fairfield Porter (1907-1975) excelled at this. I’m grateful to him for making the modern way of seeing so accessible.
Why am I bringing up Fairfield Porter now? Because of a bit of junk mail. When I got the L.L.Bean catalog in the mail yesterday, I immediately thought of Porter. At first glance I thought L.L.Bean, an East coast company, was using one of his paintings on their cover. Was this a passage from a Fairfield Porter landscape?
Porter was born in Winnetka, Illinois. He moved to the East coast to attend Harvard, then stayed and became a celebrated East coast painter. His influence in this painting on the catalog cover is undeniable.
Could the artist be from the East coast? I looked for the fine print on the inside cover. Yes. The artist is Anne Ireland and the L.L.Bean cover painting, inspired by the Maine coast, is titled “Changing Weather.”
Moral of the story: 1) see if you can switch negative space to positive and 2) notice how interesting your junk mail is.
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
artamaze by Katherine Hilden 