Space

by Gemma Guasch, Josep Asunción Pastor

«Este livro é dirigido tanto aos aficcionados, como aos que já possuem experiência no desenho ou na pintura e que desejem despertar o seu potencial criativo e descobrir o seu próprio estilo de expressão artística. É baseado num método que apresenta propostas criativas concretas, fomentando a participação activa, a experimentação e a pesquisa de novos resultados, transformando o leitor no autêntico protagonista da obra pictórica. Quinze propostas que partem de um exemplo histórico de referência e mostram a evolução, passo a passo, de uma obra pictórica criativa. »

159 pages, Hardcover

First published April 21, 2005

About the author

Gemma Guasch Gomà

Reviews

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 5 out of 5]

An in-depth study of Catalan art, from medieval times on, is long overdue. There is peculiar sensibility and a fierce creativity that emerges time and time again throughout the centuries. Though this is a book to help develop art skills, that particular kind of creativity shines through. Gemma Guasch and Josep Asunción are to be commended on their approach, the structure of the book, their illustrations of the steps in developing paintings centered on spatial dominance, their explorations of alternative models and other models and their sensitive and original selection of other artists´ works as examples. The authors, visual artists and professors of fine arts, show their mastery of theory, practice and the appreciation of art, and while clearly comfortable with postmodernism, carry the idiom lightly, helping the book have intellectual depth without forfeiting its intuitive and visual appeal to the more intuitive artist.

The book is divided into six parts. The first two parts, "Space in Visual Language" and "Space in Living Nature" presents an all too brief introduction to "Space and Visual Perception", "The Structure of Two-Dimensional Space: Composition", "The Structure of Three-Dimensional Space", "Space in the painting", "Space and Personal Experience", "Experimenting with Space", "Creative Approach 1: Rhythmic, Ordered and Alternating Spaces" and "Creative Approach 2: Grouped, Extended and Populated Spaces".

The next three parts treat space in different genres: "Space in the Still Life", "Space in the Landscape" (with fascinating sections on "Disappearing, Linear and Highway Spaces", "Urban, Industrial and Metropolitan Spaces, "Mobile, Connected and Labyrinthine Spaces" and of course, the more traditional "Natural, Atmospheric and Rural Spaces") and two thoroughly unconventional chapters on "Space in the Human Figure" (with sections on "Forced, Near and Fragmented Spaces", "Dynamics, Spinning and Weightless Spaces" and "Interior, Ihabited and Lived-in Spaces) and "Space in Abstraction", the last of which, I feel, could have been developed a little further.

All in all, a great and inspiring book.