Evaluation and Analysis of White Space in Wu Guanzhong’s Chinese Paintings

Abstract

This article reports on a recent study that examines the effect of white space on perception of Chinese paintings. The authors investigate whether white space in Chinese paintings is not simply a blank background space but rather meaningful for aesthetic perception. Applying a computational saliency model to analyze the influence of white space on viewers’ visual information processing, the authors conducted an eye-tracking experiment. As a case study, they analyzed paintings by a well-known artist, Wu Guanzhong, and collected users’ subjective aesthetic ratings. Their results show that white space is not just a silent background: It is intentionally designed to convey certain information and has a significant effect on viewers’ aesthetic experience.

Telling more or less? The impact of blank-leaving narrative style on story immersion and brand attitude

“…The notion of blank-leaving, commonly known as “white space”, originates from a creative technique in traditional Chinese painting (Fan et al , 2022; Li et al , 2013). Within this artistic practice, artists purposefully incorporate vacant spaces in the composition from a perspective of layout coordination, thereby allowing ample room for the viewers’ imagination to engage with the artwork (Fan et al , 2019). This approach allows the artwork to achieve an aesthetic realm of the harmonious interplay between the real and the imaginary, resulting in a unique and captivating visual experience (Fan et al , 2022).…”

Measuring and Evaluating the Visual Complexity Of Chinese Ink Paintings

“…As a figure of visual rhetoric, white space, although developed in different cultural backgrounds and adopted in different genres of visuals, nonetheless conveys the meaning about high status consistently. Apart from our recent investigation [21], white space in paintings-as the precursor to modern visual rhetorical figures-is far from being well explored. The documented history of Chinese ink paintings rarely adopts empirical methods to examine how viewers perceive and interpret white space.…”

“…It can be more than space of unfilled-in [20] but supposed to indicate the semantic meaning of a vast, formless and ever-changing natural phenomenon, such as a sky, clouds, water, etc. [21].…”

Visual order of Chinese ink paintings

“…White space is an established characteristic and a figure of visual rhetoric in Chinese ink paintings [24]. It is more than a blank space but indicates the semantic meaning of a vast, formless and ever-changing natural phenomenon, such as sky, clouds, water, etc.…”