On Negative Spaces
The Practical Polymath #23
Hi Friends,
Greetings from Brussels!
I went out with my best friend last night and we had a blast. We see each other twice a year but every time we do, it feels like we’re just picking up where we left off.
This week, I want to share with you Robinson’s newsletter, a delightful cocktail of lenses to make sense of the world, book reviews and music recommendations. I particularly liked his exploration of the concept of “hip”.
Until next week,
Florian
On Negative Spaces
I’m really bad at drawing.
My brother on the other hand, he’s very good at it.
Since I got to spend some time with him, I asked him for advice. I showed him how I was going about drawing a face. He stopped me. “You’re doing it all wrong”, he said, “you need to think about negative spaces”.
Negative space is the space between and around your main subject.
When you’re a zero in drawing like me, your first instinct is to follow the lines of the object you want to draw. But that’s wrong. If you do that, your drawing will look flat and boring at best. You must focus your attention on the shapes between and around your subject.
In other words, in order to draw something, you must focus on nothing.
Why is this technique so efficient? Let’s say you’re drawing a hand. Your brain has a preconceived notion of what fingers, nails and knuckles look like. This will lead you to draw based on an image that’s in your mind instead of the hand in front of you.
This is where it gets interesting.
Switching to drawing negative spaces is effectively the equivalent of brain hacking. You’re shutting down your “logical” brain by focusing it on abstract shapes that it doesn’t recognize and turning on your “observational” brain.
Negative spaces are a lens that allows us to “see” the world instead of interpreting it through abstract concepts.
But there’s more to it than just a drawing technique.
It is a mode of thinking that invites us to consider the importance of empty spaces.
Take this passage from the Tao Te Ching:
A jar is formed from clay, but its usefulness lie in the empty center. A room is made from four walls, but its usefulness lie in the space between. Matter is necessary to give form but the value of reality lies in its immateriality.
The more I read about negative spaces, the more I realized it is a lens that can be applied well beyond the domain of art.
When you speak, mark a pause to give resonance to your words.
When you go about your day, make space for stillness to give sense to your actions.
When you write, leave room.
Let the mind wander.
Freely.
Weekly Wisdom
📸 Copying your Idols: When I look at a painting by Edward Hopper, I lose track of time. I came across this video which does a brilliant job at deciphering the magic behind Hopper’s hypnotic compositions. But what I thought was even more interesting is how this YouTuber draws inspiration from his favorite painter for his own photography. And if you don’t care about Hopper, you should still watch this because the guy is hilarious.
🧱 Concrete Poetry: The beauty of learning something new is that it sends you down all kinds of rabbit holes. As I was reading up on negative spaces, I came across this article about the significance of reading space in visual poetry. The poem below is an example of Concrete Poetry, a movement that sought to blend visual and written form together. I really liked the authors’ interpretation of the poem: “The proficiency of linguistic signification is thrown into question, since, ironically, silence is expressed far better by the void of signification than by its actual signifier.”
🏞️ Book of the Week: I rarely read illustrated books but whenever my brother is around, he always has some great ones to recommend. “I Talk Like a River” is a short illustrated book about a boy who stutters and his difficult relationship with words. It is a gripping ode to the power that narratives hold to shift our perspective.
Lateral Thought
“I am always surprised to see some people demanding the time of others and meeting a most obliging response. Both sides have in view the reason for which the time is asked and neither regards the time itself – as if nothing there is being asked for and nothing given. They are trifling with life’s most precious commodity, being deceived because it is an intangible thing, not open to inspection and therefore reckoned very cheap – in fact, almost without any value.”
Seneca
Wonderful as always
Much like meditation. An empty mind has space to fill with analysis. A full mind is confusing.