An Inquiry into the Expression of Space in Painting, with Particular Reference to the Works of Johannes Vermeer of Delft

Painting is the art of expressing movement in space, as music is the art of expressing movement in time, and dancing is the expression of movement in time and space. In the dance, movement, time, and space are the familiar movement, time, and space of reality; in music only time is the time of reality and movement is symbolized by the artifice of a chain of sounds of different pitch; but in painting neither movement nor space are real, for the paint once laid upon the canvas is incapable of further motion and the canvas itself is a flat, two-dimensional surface altogether lacking the dimension of depth which characterizes space. Consequently, painting is an art of illusion, and it is the first function of the painter to find conventions and devices which will evoke in the spectator the familiar sensations of actual motion and actual space. It is this quest that constitutes the basic subject-matter of all painting.