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In page layout, illustration and sculpture, white space is often referred to as negative space. It is the portion of a page left unmarked: margins , gutters , and space between columns, lines of type, graphics, figures, or objects drawn or depicted, and is not necessarily actually white if the background is of a different colour.
This element is found in each of the visual arts. It can be positive or negative, open or closed, shallow or deep, and two-dimensional or three-dimensional. In drawing or painting, space is not actually there, but the illusion of it is. Positive space is the subject of the piece. The empty spaces around, above, and within, is negative space. [8 ...
The use of negative space is a key element of artistic composition. The Japanese word "ma" is sometimes used for this concept, for example in garden design. [2] [3] [4] In a composition, the positive space has the more visual weight while the surrounding space - that is less visually important is seen as the negative space.
The concept of space as a positive entity is opposed to the absence of such a principle in a correlated "Japanese" notion of space. Though commonly used to refer to literal, visible negative space, ma may also refer to the perception of a space, gap or interval, without necessarily requiring a physical compositional element.
Positive space refers to the areas of the work with a subject, while negative space is the space without a subject. [6] Open and closed space coincides with three-dimensional art, like sculptures, where open spaces are empty, and closed spaces contain physical sculptural elements.
This principle of design allows a balance in the frame to positive space. The empty area can form contrasting silhouettes with the subject and thus become a meaningful aspect of the frame; however, negative space is used mostly as a neutral or complementary background in order to draw focus upon the central subject.
Rubin's vase utilizes the concept of Negative space to create ambiguous images: the vase or two opposing faces. Ambiguous images or reversible figures are visual forms that create ambiguity by exploiting graphical similarities and other properties of visual system interpretation between two or more distinct image forms.
Size and alignment are the two main determinants of the visual hierarchy for these features. [11] Cartographers often utilize principles of negative space and figure-ground contrast to design an appropriate visual hierarchy by employing contrast between unused space and layout features. [1]