Don’t worry, I know I’ve been snarky all week, but this post isn’t about being negative. It’s about the artistic concept of negative space. Negative space is the space around a subject, and at times, that empty space is extremely interesting, sometimes more interesting than the subject itself. If you want to see some brilliant examples, click on the picture or follow this link to graphic artist Tang Yau Hoong’s beautiful portfolio.
I didn’t realize that some of the most important negative space around is in an art medium I wasn’t anticipating. When Betsy replied to a comment I made earlier this week that words were limited media, she said that words “allow so much room for movement – photography spells it all out for you, but words open up a million options.” That’s one of the things I love so much about books, about reading, about the written word – that it doesn’t limit me to the particular subject in great detail, that I have room to imagine what I want to imagine. That the rest of what we imagine and see around the description is much more important than the description itself.
Negative space.
Seriously, the power of a good book is the power of a writer to paint a picture in our head with a few words, and while we all get the idea, no two pictures are ever going to be the same. The book leaves so much open space for the reader to play in, it’s amazing. Photography is worth a thousand words, but in giving that power to the photographer, it takes it away from the reader’s imagination. It’s a reminder for us, in both media, to be cautious about the picture we paint. Sometimes we want the reader or viewer to see something directly that we saw because it’s beautiful, but sometimes, we need a little room to dream.
