It's the missing part of Mount St. Helens that tells the story. -- Photo by Pat Bean
“Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking.” Wallace Stevens
Travels With Maggie
To artists, negative space is the blankness that exists around painted objects. Such space can sometimes be the most interesting thing on a canvas. Consider Rubin’s painting of a vase that when taken away creates the image of two facing profiles.
The professor in a drawing class I once took emphasized the importance of this empty space by having us draw it instead of the solid form before us.
I’ve learned since then that missing elements can tell us as much about what we’re seeing as what’s before us.
It's the negative space that's the more important image of Rubin's vase. -- Photo courtesy Wikipedia
How can one look up at the crater on Mount St. Helen’s without understanding that part of the mountain is missing? Such a conclusion can conjure up the image of a volcano erupting and remind us of how fragile life is.
When I’m out walking and the chattering of birdsong is stilled, I know to look to the sky. There just might be a hawk flying overhead.
Hollow footprints let me know who or what has trodden a path before me.
A branch with missing leaves might tell me a moose munched as it passed by.
A New York city street where no one walks warns me I might not want to walk there either.
The missing elements of a scene remind me of a saying among communicators, like journalists: Just because you heard what I said doesn’t mean you heard what I said.
So it is that just because you’re looking at a beautiful landscape doesn’t mean the painting is complete. Look again to find what’s missing. The story before you might change
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