The Variation Of Space

Painting space, as form created by art, is a complete expression of significant structure extracted from human souls and nature. Therefore, this thesis attempts to probe into the problems like where the form of the expression of this structure derive from, what it is, and what kinds of basic painting elements have influenced it, what kind of materials create it, and how it has been developed.The space in which we are born, grow up, and die is an ever-existent fact, which we know so little. The purpose of architecture and sculpture is to probe into the truth of space. However, for painting, which does not have a ready-make space to rely on, it is more difficult to achieve a complete space; and the more dissimilar the different spaces are, the subtler the formation of one space is. This occurred due to the development of people’s concept of space and the painting materials and techniques, which combined together created a unique form of space, the value of which lies in its harmony. What this thesis tries to discuss is the "harmony" in those "harmonious" works.We limit the scope of this research to the western paintings."Western" in this thesis is not understood geographically but historically, thus Egypt as the origin of Greek arts also falls into the scope of our research.This thesis is composed of six chapters:Chapter one is a brief introduction of this research and a clarification of some important definitions. Chapter two to five respectively analyze some primary forms of space expression in western oil paintings in four periods:ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, the middle age and the Renaissance. The question is discussed in four aspects:the concept of space, the forms of expression in painting, the method of expression, and the influence of materials and techniques on the expression of space in painting. Chapter six makes an outline of the development of the concept of space since Paul Cezanne. It first expounds the influence of the modern concept of space on painting, then exemplifies some modern artists who greatly influenced by some kind of philosophy develop a brand new form of space expression totally different from the traditional.