Six rectangular panels of black and white fret patterns by Dow, built from interlocking S, T and L shapes, where the black and the white areas are both designed shapes.

Concept · Arranging the Picture

Positive and Negative Space

Positive space is the subject; negative space is the area around it.

The gaps are shapes too. In Dow's black-and-white panels, neither tone is simply background: both are designed.

  • Dow wrote that good notan "is dependent upon good spacing."
  • A plain background makes a figure stand out; in a 2014 talk, curator Simon Kelly suggested Van Gogh took this from Japanese prints.

See

Image: Project Gutenberg · Public domain

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