Endotopic - Exotopic
Treatment

Shading

Planes

Peinture Claire

Planar Articulation

Manet, Cézanne, Seurat

The following are discussed in the text:

Sfumato, meaning "partially dissolved," "blended"

Form-space articulations

Simultaneous contrast shading

Open and closed structure

Multiple points of view

Planar overlapping

Axial tiltings

Analytical Cubism

Passage or bridge-passage

Respiration and transaction between boundaries, form and form, form and space

Form-space continuity

Simultaneous contrast shading

Lost and found edges

Shaded from within (endoptopically) tend to recede

Shaded from without (exotopically) tend to press to the fore

Principle of interpenetration.

Some mention was made in Chapter 23 of a type of light and shadow effect that Leonardo initiated in his drawings. It went beyond normal observed illumination, except that of very hazy or misty weather. It would blossom in the rich, theatrical chiaroscuro of Baroque painting about a century after Leonardo's death in 1519. It is sometimes described by the Italian word sfumato, meaning "partially dissolved," "blended" -- and rather aptly so, as Leonardo evidently wanted to locate his forms, whether near or far, in an enveloping atmosphere filled with delicate gradations of value, in contrast to the vacuum-like space of earlier Renaissance art. By the time the art of the Impressionists had reached its peak in the 1880s, another pictorial order was emerging. An attempt was being made to bring about a more intimate relationship of form to space and of each to the flat picture-plane itself, in opposition to the long reign of deep-space, old-master illusionism. If Seurat's pointillist or divisionist procedure is the most instantly recognizable feature of his art, his most elusive and least expected device is a kind of shading one would hope to discover prominently in the works of Leonardo. It also owes little to directional light and shadow; yet it differs in most instances from Leonardo's usual method and purpose. I refer to Seurat's simultaneous contrast shading. It and more pronounced elements found in the drawings and paintings of Cézanne (open and closed structure, multiple points of view, planar overlapping, and axial tiltings would be adapted by Braque and Picasso to their first Cubist undertakings (Analytical Cubism). Form-space articulations would be pushed to a degree hitherto unimagined. Both the interior and exterior contours of forms would be reduced to rather precise flat and curvilinear planes. These would then be treated according to Seurat's simultaneous contrasts shading in somewhat the following manner:

If two adjacent, parallel (overlapping or contiguous) planes are graduated in opposite directions, from dark to light or light to dark, they will share one area where all differences of value are minimized or dissolved. This is an area of what the French call ^passage or bridge-passage, a fluid middle zone. Important though it may be, it often goes unnoticed. It is that part of a work which provides respiration and transaction between boundaries, form and form, form and space. It makes for form-space continuity. So, then, simultaneous contrast shading, as the term suggests, involves double reversals with subtle open and closed areas ("lost and found edges") and passage--if its use is not to degenerate into formula.

. . . . Paul Klee attached a great deal of importance to this as a structural device and referred to it as "endoptopic and exotopic treatment." Characteristically, he made both plastic and graphic-poetic use of it. Functionally, it provided a way of creating forward and backward as well as transparent planar fluctuations, in that forms shaded from within (endoptopically) tend to recede, while forms shaded from without (exotopically) tend to press to the fore. Simultaneous treatment of both inside and outside areas evokes the important principle of interpenetration. This in itself is enough to recommend it to artists who have no use for the conventional types of shading.