Positive and Negative Shape Positive and Negative Shape by Brian Curtis Positive and Negative Shape by Brian Curtis © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies

A PowerPoint lecture series to accompany DRAWING FROM OBSERVATION © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies

It can be said that our survival as a species is dependent on our ability to recognize and identify meaningful shapes in our surroundings. We are the descendants of individuals whose visual acuity enabled them to spot the saber-tooth tiger while there was still time to escape, of sharp-eyed gatherers who found food even when it was scarce, and more recently of perceptive and agile pedestrians who made it safely across busy streets before the cars came speeding by. A long history of biological necessity has programmed our eye/brain to assign considerable importance to self contained shape because it can be an evolutionary advantage to identify certain types of objects (tigers, fruit, automobiles, etc.). Identifying these shapes depends on our ability to distinguish them from that which is around them. Traditionally, we refer to the identifiable shape as the figure and the surrounding area as the ground. Figure/ground © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies

Our innate need to identify shape makes it nearly impossible to look at this figure and not see a white triangle as the strongest visual element in the grouping even though, technically, there is no such shape present. This propensity to extract meaningful figures from multiple elements is called closure in Gestalt psychology. closure © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies

Cultural Hierarchy Of Shape The importance of shape is also implicitly encoded in the hierarchical terms that our culture applies to figure/ground relationship. The figure is called the Positive shape. It implies goodness, rationality, and importance and can be named or described with words. Negative space is used to describe the ground. It carries with it the suggestion of insignificance. In everyday use it suggests an undifferentiated and ambiguous space whose only noteworthy characteristic is that it serves as the place in which the positive shapes are to be found. © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies

Figure/ground Reversal When we look at images that offer no definitive clues as to which shape is dominant, we experience figure/ground reversal. We can flip either shape in and out of dominance simply by concentrating on it as the positive image. By shifting our attention back and forth between the vase and the faces, we can “feel” the flip of our “perceptual switch” as one figure comes forward and the other dissolves. Our brain is only capable of responding to one figure at a time. When drawing from observation in the visual world, there is generally very little spatial ambiguity, and it is natural to respond to the clarity and visual appeal of the positive (figure) shapes while ignoring the negative ground. This tendency is a beneficial perceptual mechanism that allows us to react to things of biological importance. However, it can become a pronounced handicap when you attempt to reproduce your perceptions on a two-dimensional drawing surface. © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies

“The shapes where objects of biological importance are not.” Putting your perceptions down accurately in a drawing is dependent on your ability to focus as much attention on the spaces in between the objects as on the shape of the objects themselves. We are so unfamiliar with concentrating on “where things aren’t” that we don’t have an effective vocabulary for empty spaces and are hard-pressed to even talk about the process. You can see them but you can’t talk about them. © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies

Unnatural fixation With images that have clearly established figure/ground relationships it is extremely difficult to “flip” the negative shape forward. You must actively cultivate the ability to fixate on and identify negative shapes and empty space despite the fact that it is essentially an unnatural process. © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies

This completes the lecture Positive / Negative Shape (Figure/Ground) © 2002, The McGraw-Hill Companies