Chapter 7: Spatial vs. Temporal

Let’s start with Spatial (Space), when we experience all at once; presented in its totality at all times.

We see the famous Italian Baroque Links to an external site. sculptor, Bernini’s Links to an external site. portrayal of the Old Testament prophet David (1523) as a whole. Elements of the sculpture will not be added to or removed from it if we stand and wait and watch it. It’s presented in its totality at all times, every time.

Here Bernini has given us the moment before David flings the rock from his sling to give the deadly blow on the forehead of the Pheonician giant, Goliath. As we walk around the statue from behind and around the right to the front, it’s as if he is hurling forward with all his strength. (We see his face in a deep furrowed brow. He’s biting his lip in intense concentration.)

While we understand the movement of his body as a force through the space and we know where that rock will land, we never see the rock leave his sling. Time is forever frozen in this story, in this sculpture.

What about artwork that we experience temporally, when we experience in a linear way; beginning, middle, and end?

Below is the first (beginning) of a series of photographs by Nicholas Nixon Links to an external site.of his wife Bebe Brown and her three sisters (left to right: Heather, Mimi, Bebe, Laurie). This is the first in the series of photographs, each is a single black and white photo of the four siblings.

Here is the photo from 2011, The Brown Sisters, Truro, Massachusetts. (2011).

We see gradual age and change in relationship dynamics. As the series progresses through time (temporal) we see an age of each and the evolution of the whole. As the series continues in the future we will experience their eventual death.

Here’s another one: Christoph Rehage Links to an external site., The Longest Way, 2009. Time-lapse photography of his journay across China.

However, some artworks exists without progression, without narrative. Look at the French Impressionist Links to an external site. Claude Monet Links to an external site.’s Water Lilies (1916–26). The artwork is a triptych (a set of three) and each panel is 80 × 170 inches. The triptych was installed at the Orangerie in Paris Links to an external site. in 1927.

The scale of the works makes you MOVE in order to experience piece. They encircle the room, they encircle the viewer, and create environment.

Each panel is painted from viewpoint of the pond from the shore. The gallery therefore becomes inverted like island in middle of pond!

And it cannot be seen all at once! You must move. And there is no focal point so your eye moves around the patterns of the paint. Standing in middle of the gallery, the viewer’s eye buffets along at random, there is no place for eye to rest. No progression but constant motion.

What about optical painting? Optical painting is when an artworks illusion of movement due to the subtle manipulation of formal elements.

The Op Art Links to an external site. artist, Bridget Riley Links to an external site. regularly works with the illusions of movement and space in her works. In Drift No. 2 (1966) we see a large canvas of waves and rolls; they create a visual equivalent to HEAT.

Here is another of her works (and I think a better display of illusion. Riley’s 1961 Movement in Squares (1961).