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Shape and Mass
Form and Space
March 7,
2002
Definitions
2-D Shape:
a line enclosing an area
Any visually perceived area of
value, texture, color, or line – or any combination of these elements.
3-D shape:
Geometric Shapes
Most often suggest stability,
order, repose.
Some Geometric Shapes In language:
What is a square
person?
Coming full circle
A love triangle
Geometric Shapes dominate in the
built environment
Geometric & Non-objective Shapes
Mondrian
Frank Stella
Moorish designs
Natural Shapes
Imitate things in the natural world
Nature’s shapes
hexagon, branching, spiral or
helix, oval, meander
Art Nouveau
Art movement that flourished around
the turn of the century.
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Antonio Gaudi
Abstract Shapes
Natural shapes that have been
distorted often through simplification
Picasso
Mass
A shape that appears to stand out
three dimensionally from te space surrounding it. In the plastic arts, the
physical bulk of a solid body of material
The same categories that we
identified in shape apply to mass as well.
Geometric Masses
Natural Masses
Abstract Masses
Nonobjective
Masses
Geometric Masses
The cube, sphere, and pyramid
operate as the three-dimensional equivalents of square, circle, and triangle.
To these we must add the cone (a
triangle rotated on its axis) and the cylinder (a rectangle rotated on its
bisector).
Cube
A cube may be the most visually
stable of all forms.
Normally a restful mass
Most buildings are cubes.
Sphere
The sphere is somehow a satisfying
mass.
Globes, rubber balls, and the earth
itself are all spheres.
The sphere seems to be always
turning, never static. There are no sharp edges to bring motion to a halt, as
there are in a cube. A sphere nearly always implies movement and time.
Pyramid
The pyramid is immensely stable
from an engineering point of view. Stresses beginning at the tip spread out in
all directions to the broad base.
It is no accident that these
structures have outlasted all the other wonders of the ancient world.
Cone
The cone appears by nature to be a
thrusting mass, as in the nose cone of a spaceship or the cone of a volcano.
Cylinder
The cylinder is a generally
utilitarian mass.
Cans, tubes, vases, cooking pots,
cups, and many machine parts take the form of cylinder.
Natural Masses
Like natural shapes, natural masses
abound in the history of art.
The human form
Landscapes
Abstract Masses
At its best, abstraction can touch
the basic quality of a form, while distorting its contours.
By its definition an abstract
concentrates on the essence of a thing.
Nonobjective Masses
Do not refer to any specific
recognizable form.
When they seem organic, as
though they might be part of some living thing, they are termed biomorphic.
The artist who works in
nonobjective mass invites the participation of the spectator.
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