Form: Dimension Flat out fantastic Shintaro Okamato Not all artists are concerned with describing how objects look to the eye at any given moment. For example, neither medieval religious painters nor ancient Egyptian artists were particularly interested in capturing how objects look to the naked eye. Instead, they felt that objects should be depicted in accordance with their role in a cosmic hierarchy. Many contemporary abstract artists also choose to depict a flat, two-dimensional space for their own reasons. Working within two-dimensional space, abstract artists can explore the relationships of colors, textures, and flat shapes on the surface of the picture. Adding another dimension to art To describe the shape of any object and to fix its location relative to other objects, we need to know its height, width and depth. We may find images without these three dimensions difficult to grasp, so many artists working in two dimensions help us out by creating the illusion of three-dimensional space. For example, the image at left leads us to imagine that there is a backside to the pyramid, creating an illusion of three dimensions. This illusion of a deep three-dimensional space on the flat two-dimensional picture plane has become imbedded as a standard in Western art since the Italian Renaissance (roughly the 15th to 16th centuries A.D.). So close and yet so far away Bill Hudders In the modern urban landscape shown here, artist Bill Hudders uses an array of Renaissance-era perspective techniques to create a sense of deep space. Our eye travels across an expanse of water to a city rendered using the classic rules of perspective. As the eye moves toward the distant horizon, the objects get progressively smaller in relation to one another. We read the relatively large chair as nearby, and the comparatively smaller skyscraper as far away. The interior is dark, and creates an architectural frame for the urban scene. Why art is never one-dimensional We learned in elementary geometry that theoretically, points and lines have only one dimension — but if you think art can be one-dimensional, just try to draw a point or a line as shown below. When you do, you'll notice that you've automatically given them two dimensions: height and width. And you've not only created a two-dimensional object, but also a relationship between this object and the empty area around it. The point and line appear to lie in, on, or even in front of the space that surrounds them. You are now working with three dimensions, and have created the beginnings of an illusion of space. The links below will lead you further into a discussion about space. Depth Perspective Other solutions Next: Depth