An area within a composition that has boundaries that separate it from what surrounds it, making it distinct.
Shape
100
_____ _____ tend to have a curvilinear quality that suggests growth and movement.
Organic Shapes
100
That which remains in the composition around or beyond the positive shapes.
Negative Shapes
200
In three-dimensional works, _____ can be used synonymously with shape. Also used to describe the entirety of a work of art, including its elements, design principles, and composition.
Form
200
Representing nothing other than shape - for its own sake.
Nonobjective Shapes
200
The shifting of viewer perceptions such that what, at one moment, appears to be the figure in a composition becomes the ground, and vice versa.
Figure-ground Reversal
300
Objects depicted as being three-dimensional on a two-dimensional surface have _____ _____. That is, the objects appear to possess volume, have weight and occupy space.
Implied Mass
300
They can be either rectilinear or curvilinear, but they have an unnatural, mathematical appearance.
Geometric Shapes
300
The shapes in a composition.
Positive Shapes
400
The mass or bulk of a three-dimensional work; the amount of space it contains.
Volume
400
Shape without shape.
Amorphous Shapes
400
According to Gestalt psychologists, figure-ground reversals work because we tend to perceive things in ______.
context
500
If you were to talk about a piece of art in terms of it’s elements and design, you would be taking the _____ _____ approach.
Formalist Criticism
500
Emphasizes the two-dimensionality of the canvas and is characterized by multiple views of an object and the reduction of an image to its essential lines and shapes.
Cubism
500
The relationship between the shapes and the other parts of the composition.