Theory corner – negative space – why where you don’t put flowers is also important.

This is part of my series of articles on how you can apply visual composition theory to Garden Design. 

Negative space is the part of a picture that doesn’t contain an object. So, if your picture is of an apple... everything else is the negative space.

Many people don’t understand how important this is to classical artists.

Seeing negative space is difficult at first. Look at your thumb and first finger. Make an OK shape. The thumb and finger is a positive shape. But inside that space, there is another shape, which is called the negative shape in art.

And that shape is the key to composition for a lot of art.

If you look at any great picture, one of the things that make it interesting are the balance of shapes around the object. The objects are often subordinated to larger compositional design. Sometimes it is so funny... you can literally draw arrows on the picture, it is so blatant.

But, as art came into the renaissance, the importance of the space around objects became more recognised. This is where the golden mean comes in. By placing centres of interest at certain places in the picture, you are almost guaranteed interesting negative shapes.

For a better discussion on art theory and negative shapes, have a look at http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2010/05/design-balance-fitting-one-characters.html .

This has implications on garden design that are barely thought about. To make a really gorgeous garden it is not just important where you put your plants. You must also consider where you do not put the plants, if you are going to make empty space into interesting shapes from a particular viewpoint.

Of course, people won’t know what you are doing. But they will sense it.

This is less relevant when designing a garden as a whole than a picture, but when designing the view from a particular bench, you can use the same mental processes.

What can you do to make the negative shapes more interesting? One thing that is immediately obvious is not to centre objects. Place them either side of the centre. You should have a variety of heights, as well. Try to check not just where you are planting a flower, but have a look at the space around the flower to see if by changing the location you can create any interesting shapes.

Negative space is a hard concept to understand, but once you do so it gives you the ability to understand more of the design of a garden.

Actually, once you look for negative space you find that in the best gardens interesting negative shapes are always with us.  Great designers often play with negative shapes without being that conscious of it.

There are some other artistic concepts that people should consider when analysing the negative shapes of the garden – balance, unity and contrast are the most obvious ones. Every positive shape... bush or tree ... should be balanced by a negative shape in your design. 

What I mean by that is that if you have a large tree, there should be a corresponding empty place where your eye can rest. Or if you have a busy space filled with colour or detail, a negative space that is quiet will act as a contrast making the noisy part stand out more.

Unity in negative spaces is a very difficult concept to grasp, but the positive spaces should all be related to each other... for example if you have a tree, it shouldn’t be planted alone, but you should plant it so that it forms a larger feature... and orchard or border... or simply a larger positive shape... and if the garden is planted according to this understanding of hierarchy in garden design you will find that over time unity will develop naturally. The garden will be more than the sum of its parts.  

Contrast is another thing that should come naturally, but you can check for. Look at the empty spaces and make sure that some are larger than others, they form a lot of different shapes, and they are not boring. 

People might be wondering about whether visual art is a good guidance for designing gardens. Well, artists simplify the world in a way that gardeners can’t. But, when designing a garden, we can control things to an extent. By selecting certain points in the garden where we will view the garden from, we can use the principals of great picture design to inform out gardening. Rather like a sculptor will often decide where his sculpture will be seen from.

Of course, picture design is only a small part of the puzzle. I think my next theory article will go onto something completely different...  the theory of magic as applied to garden design. But before that I will write a more practical post.

Och. Too much thought. Must... do... weeding.

Theory Corner – The Principals of Art – How Hierarchy Affects Garden Design

Please forgive me, but for my first article on the theory of design, I am going to start off on a tangent. I will get to the point eventually, I promise.

One of the basic theories of composition in visual arts is the theory of Hierarchy. In this post I will discuss this in a basic way, but with emphasis on the use of hierarchy in design generally. If you consider a picture, it can look very complicated. By dividing the picture up into the largest shapes you can create a sense of order, while the smaller shapes conform to this order.

That sounds difficult, but it is something you probably do naturally all the time.

Ok you are thirsty... so... what do you do? You make a cup of tea. There are all kinds of things involved in making a cup of tea, but these details are subordinated. Making a cup of tea involves boiling a kettle, filling a cup with water, putting a tea bag into the cup, swirling it with a spoon. And each of those steps involves hundreds of things you don’t need to think about.

Hierarchy in art is simply the requirement that you know what the big picture is... the fact you want to make a cup of tea... and considering that first. It involves ignoring the smallest details. 

It is easiest to see in old cartoon and illustration.

Look at this cartoon figure. It is from a book by Preston Blair. You will notice that he draws the big shapes... cubes... spheres and similar first. Then he draws the second subsidiary details next. And finally, there are some very fine details. The biggest things are considered first, and the smaller details conform to the bigger picture.

Or consider this (rather old) advertisement. Your eye is led around it is a specific order. First to the woman, then to the title, and finally to the detail of what she is scrubbing with. By having the title as the most important element of the design, people know what the story is immediately.

As a compositional principal, hierarchy is in almost every human art, and I would say in almost every good garden design too.

Of course, garden design is more complicated than a drawing design. Rather than designing from one viewpoint, you have to design in three dimensions. But the same principal applies to all great gardens.

When designing a garden, you need to consider where people will first see it. For example, will they see it from a seat, or a path? One you know the main viewpoints, you can design shapes almost like it is a two dimensional picture.

Decide what the largest shapes they will see once you plant the garden. Are those shapes oblongs, rectangles, or non-geometric shapes that will suit a herbaceous border? But, if you were partially sighted and couldn’t see anything but a blur... what would be the essence that you see?

Once you have designed these major shapes, break each shape down further.

Consider the other principals of design, such as unity, contrast, in these subdivisions. But, the fundamental requirement in is to know what the most important shapes will be from any viewpoint. What the person has to take away for a glance at the garden design for the garden to be successful, even if they aren’t consciously aware of it.

 Once you achieve this big picture view it is much easier to develop the next level of the hierarchy... whether you will use specific colours, or shapes of plant which contrast with each other... because each large shape in your design will be something you can apply further hierarchy to subdivide further.

Make a practice every time you look at a garden to notice the very largest shapes... the structure of the garden... before the details. Try to watch your mind... see what it notices first, then what it notices next. What are the largest shapes.

By understanding what the most important thing is for someone to see first, and then the second most important thing, and the third important thing, you will be able to subordinate the small details to the big pictures. 

And this will make your garden better.

I intend to discuss the other principals of visual arts latter on in this blog, and hope that by considering garden design outside of the normal context, it will offer some unusual thoughts that will help you design gardens more effectively.