Absence/Emptiness as a theme in art

[Zeldar]

It just occurred to me that one of the elements in my favorite poetry that appeals most to me is that notion that something is missing or gone.

Examples would include the emptiness expressed in Shelley's Ozymandias with
"...Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Another is that chilling image of silence in Walter de la Mare's The Listeners with
"...Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone."

I've even posted these passages in other threads about favorite poetry, etc.

Many of the haiku that affect me most have similar imagery.

But that's poetry.

I'm curious if other art works -- paintings, music, movies, sculpture, even architecture -- capitalize on the notion of something missing or absent. As if the thing one seems to focus on, whether immediately or after some buildup, is what's NOT in the scene.

I can't think of anything offhand so I thought I'd ask you folks.

[ultrafilter]

There's always John Cage's famous composition 4'33". In literature, the later works of Samuel Beckett often deal with the absence of something--be it a love, a sense of identity, a plot, characters, etc. In visual art, the notion of negative space is quite well-established.

[Zeldar]

There's always John Cage's famous composition 4'33". In literature, the later works of Samuel Beckett often deal with the absence of something--be it a love, a sense of identity, a plot, characters, etc. In visual art, the notion of negative space is quite well-established.

Your mention of Cage helps me to recall that Leroy Anderson's Serenata makes dramatic use of rests. Not to the extreme like 4'33" but noticeable.

Can you cite examples of "negative space" in visual art? Maybe I have appreciated such things without knowing their name.

[GorillaMan]

Your mention of Cage helps me to recall that Leroy Anderson's Serenata makes dramatic use of rests. Not to the extreme like 4'33" but noticeable.
The music of Helmut Lachenmann makes extraordinary use of pauses and silences. Late Schnittke compositions are another case - I remember reading a very good description of his last symphonies as being like 'structures of Mahler symphonies, stripped down to their essential skeletal components'.

[ultrafilter]

Can you cite examples of "negative space" in visual art? Maybe I have appreciated such things without knowing their name.

Not off the top of my head. Google should help you.

[Zeldar]

Not off the top of my head. Google should help you.

Okay. I did a bit of checking through searches about the meaning of "negative space" in 2D art like paintings and drawings. My take is that it refers to the situations like those "fool the eye" things like the two goblets where you see profiles or the "Jesus" appearing as white space among black lettering. Perhaps it even includes things like the picture that looks like a young woman but then if you stare at it or pick some other details it switches to looking like an old hag.

While these examples seem sort of trivial by comparison to the emotional impact I was referring to in the OP, I am curious if there are paintings or drawings where the real focus seems to be on the absent item and its very absence causes some emotional response.

[jjimm]

Think I've mentioned this before but I'll risk repeating myself. Unfortunately it never came to fruition, but it was a great idea.

Back in the days when Ireland was under British rule, the Brits put up Nelson's Pillar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson's_Pillar), a large column dedicated to the British hero, in the middle of Dublin. It remained in place after Irish independence, to the annoyance of many.

During the beginning of "The Troubles", in the 1960s, the IRA blew the top off it, and the next day the Irish Army demolished the rest.

The gap in O'Connell street remained empty until the 1990s, when Dublin Council put out a tender to fill it. The winning entry was a 120 metre spike (http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/northcity/oconnell_street/spire.html).

However, one of the entries, I thought, was brilliant. It was a perspex column, hollowed out in the exact size and shape of Nelson's Pillar: it was to contain the absence of the pillar.

[Annie-Xmas]

There's the symbolism of the flat spot at the end of New York City on the Hudson River side. You cannot deny that.

[delphica]

I don't know if this is going to come across well on a computer screen as opposed to viewing it in person, but I've always been intrigued by Giorgio de Chirico's L' angoisse du Depart (http://www.masterworksartgallery.com/Chirico-Giorgio/Chirico-Giorgio-de-L-Angoisse-du-depart.html).

There's stuff there, but the middle space is empty. That white puff in the background is usually read as the steam from a departing train (the translation of the title is "the anguish of departing"), although it's not that specific in the actual painting. Every time I see it, I feel like it's a painting of the space where something has happened, but the artist chose to capture a moment after the significant event. Hopefully you'll take my word for it that this painting is downright haunting in person.

Other paintings from de Chirico's metaphysical period have a similar tone -- they feature industrial landscapes and architeture that seems curiously abandoned.

[Zeldar]

However, one of the entries, I thought, was brilliant. It was a perspex column, hollowed out in the exact size and shape of Nelson's Pillar: it was to contain the absence of the pillar.

Beautiful example, but I suspect the knowledge of the significance of the original monument (and its demise) would be required before a viewer would get the same chill that the knowledgeable person would have. This is not meant to demean the value of that entry, but I could relate to the choice not to have it win the commission. Similar considerations are probably in play with whatever will eventually replace the Trade Towers.

To be fair, I suspect that anyone who would be moved by the awareness that something was absent from a work of art and that the absence was the real focus of the work, would have to have some prior knowledge of that item's meaning. That seems almost to defeat the idea that something's not being there has inherent meaning.

Surely some clever artist has examined this issue and done something to test the idea.

[Zeldar]

How about the scene in The Godfather Part II where the kids are sitting around the table waiting for Don Vito to come in for his birthday party? It's the one where Michael has confronted Sonny and Tom about his plans to go into the Marines.

Moviegoers would be aware that Brando was not in the production of that movie for reasons that had little to do with the movie itself. But knowing that he wasn't the one coming into the next room, out of view of the camera, and causing the family to start into "For he's a jolly good fellow..." must have had a similar effect to others as it did for me.

Over and above the relevance that this flashback was meant to have, that those "good old days" were gone, there was something extra missing in Brando's almost palpable absence.

Did anybody else feel that way?

[lissener]

There's always John Cage's famous composition 4'33". To be fair, "nothingness" was not at all Cage's intention with 4'33''; nor is that the experience of the audience, if you've ever seen it performed. His point was to move the focus off of the stage; away from the musician. That music is all around us, all the time. When you sit in silence for 4 minutes and 33 seconds--especially in a place like a full concert hall--you're forced to start noticing the textures of sound all around you: you hear the presence of people, no matter how silent they're trying to be. You hear a truck go by outside. Your thoughts supply the "libretto" of the piece. 4'3'' is actually a pretty uplifting piece about community and connectedness, if you're open to it. It's only about "nothingness" on paper; in performance it's an entirely diffferent thing.

In literature, the later works of Samuel Beckett often deal with the absence of something--be it a love, a sense of identity, a plot, characters, etc. Not to pick on you, UF, but I read Beckett differently. He's not nihilistic at all. His emblematic message is the final sentence of the first part of Molloy: "I can't go on. I'll go on." There's darkness in Beckett, but it's a kind of joyful darkness. The more negative Beckett gets, the wider his evil grin gets; the funnier he gets. For me, Beckett's central message is that no matter how bleak life may seem, it's always gonna be worth the struggle. Pretty much the opposite of nihilism. Although, since he engages nihilism before overcoming it, it's easy to get bogged down in the first part of that equation.
In visual art, the notion of negative space is quite well-established.What the heck; I guess I am picking on you UF ;) . Negative space in visual art is also not about nothingness; it's about context, complement. The concept of negative space is to remind us to engage with the entire work, including its context, and the space around the object, the complement of the object.

It's also not about "fool the eye," Zeldar. It's about seeing the light and air that passes through the crook of a statue's arm, and not stopping at the arm. The black and white examples that Google conjures up for you are not examples of negative space in art, literally; they're schematicized exaggerations to show you the area under discussion. Negative space is the part of the Mona Lisa that isn't the Mona Lisa.

It can be illusory, like the light areas in a Franz Kline (http://www.desordre.net/accessoires/peinture/kline.jpg) painting, or literal, like in this Moholy-Nagy (http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Stage/7047/Moholy_Nagy_fotos/Funkturm_Berlin_aus_Film/Funkturm_BLN_1932_im_Film.jpg) photograph. The problem with looking for examples of negative space is you end up finding mostly stuff that's ALL about negative space. Almost every image has some negative space in it. Abstract paintings that are all about the surface of the canvas can be, to a certain extent, mostly a "look ma, no negative space!" trick. That's the struggle of such a painting: fighting to keep the viewer's focus on the surface, and not to fall into any negative space.

Anyway.

Dorothy Jackson's stuff is all about emptiness and nothingness to me.

[lissener]

However, one of the entries, I thought, was brilliant. It was a perspex column, hollowed out in the exact size and shape of Nelson's Pillar: it was to contain the absence of the pillar.
Makes me think of the Holocaust Memorial (I think it is) in Vienna (I think): a concrete cast of the inside of a building, with the building removed and nothing left but the cast of its negative space.

[lissener]

There's the symbolism of the flat spot at the end of New York City on the Hudson River side. You cannot deny that.
Huh. I swear I posted something on that, but it's not here. Definitely though, a powerful example of negative space.

[ultrafilter]

I didn't read the OP closely enough, so my examples are bit off. Still, the most prominent feature of 4'33" is the absence of music--not that there's a sense of nothingness or loss, but that there is no music being played. Similarly, Beckett's best works are notable for their lack of traditional story elements (I'm thinking particularly of "The Unnameable" and "Company" here). Escher was a master of using empty space to draw attention to what should be there.

[GorillaMan]

Still, the most prominent feature of 4'33" is the absence of music--not that there's a sense of nothingness or loss, but that there is no music being played
But there is music being played. That the music consists of silence uninterrupted by directed sounds is the unique concept.

[yBeayf]

The first stanza of Bunin's "Люцифер", describing the church Hagia Sophia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia) around the turn of the century:

В святой Софии голуби летали,
Гнусил мулла. Эректеон был нем.
И боги гомерических поэм
В пустых музеях стыли и скучали.

A literal translation:

In Hagia Sophia pigeons flew,
a mullah bowed down. It was the Erectheon,
and the gods of Homeric poems
in empty museums were frozen and yearning.

It describes very well, I think, the Orthodox perspective of what was done to Hagia Sophia under the Turks -- it went from being the greatest church in Christendom, to a run-down mosque, to a run-down museum. It could even be applied to Constantinople itself -- from the New Rome, the glory of eastern Christendom and the jewel of Hellenic culture, to the capital of the Turkish barbarians, its treasures looted, its mosaics whitewashed, its church bells and semandrons replaced with minarets and the call of the adhaan.

[panamajack]

Berlin's Bebelplatz (formerly the Opernplatz) was the site of one of the largest mass book-burnings in the 1930s. The memorial art is an empty library, located underneath the square and visible through its ceiling. It's an excellent and meaningful use of empty space. Picture here (http://www.well.com/~tom/berlin/bebelplatz.html).

Of course, without context such art is more difficult to understand. When I visited this memorial, I saw two incidents that struck me : A couple of Chinese tourists who'd wandered off from their guide to see why people were staring into the ground, took a look and chuckled uncomprehendingly. Then a mother and small child came up, and the mother explained what had happened, but could not respond when the child asked, "Why'd they do that?"

[Talon Karrde]

Not to pick on you, UF, but I read Beckett differently. He's not nihilistic at all. His emblematic message is the final sentence of the first part of Molloy: "I can't go on. I'll go on." There's darkness in Beckett, but it's a kind of joyful darkness. The more negative Beckett gets, the wider his evil grin gets; the funnier he gets. For me, Beckett's central message is that no matter how bleak life may seem, it's always gonna be worth the struggle. Pretty much the opposite of nihilism. Although, since he engages nihilism before overcoming it, it's easy to get bogged down in the first part of that equation.
Doesn't the end of Waiting for Godot kind of contradict that? Waiting for Godot actually is a really good example for this thread though. Godot's absence is a big part of it.

[ultrafilter]

Doesn't the end of Waiting for Godot kind of contradict that? Waiting for Godot actually is a really good example for this thread though. Godot's absence is a big part of it.

It would only be contradicted if Didi and Gogo had killed themselves. Instead, they wait for Mr. Godot every day, despite the fact that he never comes.

[Talon Karrde]

It would only be contradicted if Didi and Gogo had killed themselves. Instead, they wait for Mr. Godot every day, despite the fact that he never comes.
I guess I misremebered it, because I thought they really did kill themselves. I'll check it out real quick... Okay, you're right. They say they'll kill themselves the next day if Godot doesn't come, but would have to wait for him to find out, so it appears they will just keep waiting for him.
I am very pleased to see from this thread that he's written more besides Godot and Endgame. I love those plays.

[ultrafilter]

I am very pleased to see from this thread that he's written more besides Godot and Endgame. I love those plays.

Beckett was one of the more prolific 20th century authors--his collected works fill 16 volumes, last I heard.

[Scissorjack]

The other day, upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
I wish the hell he'd go away.

Does that count?

[lissener]

It would only be contradicted if Didi and Gogo had killed themselves. Instead, they wait for Mr. Godot every day, despite the fact that he never comes.
Hm. Well, since it's (among other things) an allegory about man's relationship with God, it's not so much about an absence as about a dysfunctional relationship. God[ot] never arrives, within the time frame of the play, but there's no question he's out there. Just because God don't meet you halfway don't mean he ain't out there.

[Zeldar]

I'm pretty sure this instance can't be counted as profound, and it may even be so personal (for me) that mentioning it here may be seen as trivial. However, it does address the theme a bit and may help spur others to think of better examples.

The "Classic Arts" channel has been a favorite rest stop for us for quite a while now. It's on the PEG channel (Public -- Educational -- Government) that had been content free until this Arts service began to be shown. It's filmed shorts of performances of ballet, opera, classical music, some oldies jazz shorts and occasionally just a visual tour of an art exhibition. Mostly music, though.

The other day there was an extended tribute to Joaquin Rodrigo and his famous composition Concierto de Aranjuez with orchestra conducted by Placido Domingo and guitar by Manuel Barrueco. Until then I wasn't aware that Rodrigo was still alive and that he had been blind since childhood nor that he composed using a Braille machine!

Anyway, the camera's focus was mainly on the guitarist and an English horn player, with occasional shots of Domingo and the strings. Whenever the focus was on the English horn player, just beyond her and somewhat out of focus in the lap of someone who never was shown playing the instrument was a muted trumpet. Whether it was intentional or not, I couldn't help but feel a pang for the absence of Miles Davis. His Sketches of Spain album from the late 50's was my first introduction to Concierto and may be many people's only exposure.

Many jazz players have included it in older albums, mostly guitarists like Jim Hall, Laurindo Almeida, etc., but Miles gave it and other Spanish flavored music a touch that showed that blues and gypsy music share roots and feelings.

No mention was made of Davis in the discussions of Rodrigo's works, nor was anything said about that anonymous trumpet player in the orchestra, and after I saw the trumpet I listened more intently than I had been for its sound. I never heard it.

[Talon Karrde]

Hm. Well, since it's (among other things) an allegory about man's relationship with God, it's not so much about an absence as about a dysfunctional relationship. God[ot] never arrives, within the time frame of the play, but there's no question he's out there. Just because God don't meet you halfway don't mean he ain't out there.
Huh. The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_For_Godot) disputes the connection to God. Of course, they could be wrong and I don't find their arguments very convincing. English writers sometimes use other languages in their titles, so it's not impossible for a French play to use an English word. Also, authors aren't known to be entirely honest about their own works. Personally I mostly agree with you, except I'd put a huge emphasis on "among other things".

It also says in the article that a lot of unofficial sequals were written. I think an interesting one would be if Godot arrived, but they pretended he didn't and went on to wait for him every day.

[Talon Karrde]

As for poetry, Robert Frost's "Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening" comes to mind. The absence in that is how much he wants to get home.

[capybara]

If you're looking for that kind of emotional Schiller-"sublime" empty thing, or Kierkegaard floating above 70000 fathoms, etc, Caspar David Friederich might do it.
Monk by the Sea (http://www.wga.hu/art/f/friedric/1/105fried.jpg)
Abbey in Oaks (http://www.wga.hu/art/f/friedric/1/106fried.jpg)

I love that Frost poem. Probably my favorite.

[booklyn]

Portugese word "Saudade", defined by Ana Vez', " When one's lovers absence is the strongest presence"

also the brit artists, Tracy Emin?, casts the spaces around various things...

[Mangetout]

Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard; the two minor characters from Hamlet carry on a surreal disembodied dialogue in a vague sort of void.

[El_Kabong]

Hunh, this is a fairly interesting thread. Absence, mainly an absence of humans, or humanity, in the man-made landscape, has been one of my photographic interests for some time. After all these years, I'm not sure whether it's because of an innate sense of loneliness that I've always had or simply because I'm too shy to poke a camera in the faces of strangers; in any event, the sense of feeling completely lost and alone in an urban environment really jumps out at me at times. If no one minds the imposition, here are a few photos that attempt to capture what I'm talking about, taken (http://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=isolation3cc.jpg) in Paris (http://img30.imageshack.us/my.php?image=avenir8xo.jpg) in the mid-90s and in Dundee (http://img30.imageshack.us/my.php?image=outdundee06nov058bp.jpg), Scotland (http://img30.imageshack.us/my.php?image=westergourdiedundee15dec056rv.jpg) late last year.

[lissener]

Huh. The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_For_Godot) disputes the connection to God. Of course, they could be wrong and I don't find their arguments very convincing. English writers sometimes use other languages in their titles, so it's not impossible for a French play to use an English word. Also, authors aren't known to be entirely honest about their own works. Personally I mostly agree with you, except I'd put a huge emphasis on "among other things".And since English was Beckett's first language . . .

It also says in the article that a lot of unofficial sequals were written. I think an interesting one would be if Godot arrived, but they pretended he didn't and went on to wait for him every day.Ha! Then they'd be Jewish! At least in the sense that, no matter how many Messiahs show up, there will always be some Jews who don't accept him; a kind of "No True Jew . . ." thing. Maybe THAT'S what WFG is about . . .

[Zeldar]

Hunh, this is a fairly interesting thread. Absence, mainly an absence of humans, or humanity, in the man-made landscape, has been one of my photographic interests for some time. After all these years, I'm not sure whether it's because of an innate sense of loneliness that I've always had or simply because I'm too shy to poke a camera in the faces of strangers; in any event, the sense of feeling completely lost and alone in an urban environment really jumps out at me at times. If no one minds the imposition, here are a few photos that attempt to capture what I'm talking about, taken (http://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=isolation3cc.jpg) in Paris (http://img30.imageshack.us/my.php?image=avenir8xo.jpg) in the mid-90s and in Dundee (http://img30.imageshack.us/my.php?image=outdundee06nov058bp.jpg), Scotland (http://img30.imageshack.us/my.php?image=westergourdiedundee15dec056rv.jpg) late last year.

Definitely some moody shots. Surely they're on topic.

We've had Naqoyqatsi (2002) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145937/) checked out from Netflix for several weeks now. It's part of the trilogy begun by Koyaanisqatsi (1983) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085809/) which also addressed some of the themes we've been discussing here. The opening sequence in Naqoyqatsi is of a deserted building somewhere (I haven't discovered where yet) that uses long slow pans and zooms to capture the isolation and waste of an otherwise amazing structure. It looks like it may be scheduled for demolition. But the mood of that sequence -- which runs several minutes -- coupled with the Philip Glass music -- is enough to tug at your heart. (At least it did mine.)

[booklyn]

Sets for first production of WFG made by Alberto Giacometti, a master of reductivism.
One story about AG- started a 20 pound block of plaster, ended with a piece that weighed a few onces.
talk about absence.

[Johanna]

"We are the hollow men" -- T.S. Eliot

Thirty spokes converge on a single hub;
It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.

We make a vessel from a lump of clay;
It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.

We make doors and windows for a room;
But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.

Thus, while the tangible has advantages,
It is the intangible that makes it useful.

—Tao Te Ching

[fessie]

You mentioned Miles Davis, but I didn't see his quote "It's not the notes that make music
beautiful; it's the space between the notes".

I just knew lissener would've given you some info on negative space already. Here's an artist I particularly like whose use of negative space is fun (http://www.leetracy.com/art_mixed.html). But truly, all good visual art incorporates negative space, that's what "locks" the image, just like pauses in music. Like with van Gogh's Sunflowers (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/paintingflowers/paintings/sunflowers_van_gogh.shtml) -- visual artists don't just slap on a background and paint on top. The negative space is in a dialogue with the object, as you're painting you touch on them both. That's what makes it fun.

[Zeldar]

You mentioned Miles Davis, but I didn't see his quote "It's not the notes that make music
beautiful; it's the space between the notes".


Good of you to point that fact out. Miles had admiaration for Ahmad Jamal and Shirley Horn for just that reason. I've heard that he credited Jamal with showing him the way to that realization.

BTW, those are some neat pictures, too.

[Ukulele Ike]

Like delphica and capybara, I found myself thinking of painters.

Particularly the Symbolists. Particularly Fernand Khnopff. Particularly his The Abandoned City (http://www.artunframed.com/images/artmis18/khnopff55.jpg).

Some spooky shit going on in there. What happened to the statue on the pedestal? Why is the sea encroaching on the street?

[booklyn]

[QUOTE=fessie]You mentioned Miles Davis, but I didn't see his quote "It's not the notes that make music
beautiful; it's the space between the notes".
I think that quote is from Eric Satie before Miles.

:)

[Johanna]

Odd, I was just at the piano playing a Bach prelude and fugue in C minor, and noticed that the prelude was solid blocks of sixteenth notes in both hands the entire way through. No rests, no space between the notes at all. Still sounds OK to me. Maybe your name has to be Johann Sebastian Bach to be able to make that sound OK.

In Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes", the intro guitar melody, which recurred after each chorus, was definitely sculpted around the empty spaces. Check it out. You can hear silence functioning with as much musical force as notes, if not more.

[lissener]

In Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes", the intro guitar melody, which recurred after each chorus, was definitely sculpted around the empty spaces. Check it out. You can hear silence functioning with as much musical force as notes, if not more.That's a very interesting thought.

THere's a Shostokovich symphony (I wanna say Tenth?) whose first movement, I swear, is the complement; the negative; of the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth. I don't know if I could possibly explain this. If I can determine that it is in fact the Tenth, I'll confirm here, and you can listen for yourself and tell me if I'm crazy.

[Sleel]

An awful lot of the aesthetics of traditional Japanese art is about negative space. From ink painting to architecture, even in music, what's not there is often considered to be as important as what is there. Sumi-e (ink paintings) and anything to do with calligraphy like shodô are particularly noteworthy since they are primarily white space and ink shapes. When I first listened to koto and shakuhachi music I was struck at how important the silences between notes is.

[Only Mostly Dead]

One of my favorite poems, Mark Strand "Keeping Things Whole (http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/453.html)"

(I really don't know if this is copyrighted, and since it's only 17 lines long, and each line is two or three words - talk about minimalism - , I am just linking a a copy on an educational site to CMA over posting copyrighted material.)

[Johanna]

Ever notice how perfectly everything fills up the space it would leave if it weren't there?

[Fern Forest]

I like Glen Cook's book "Old Tin Sorrows" but it really depresses me. It takes place in this huge mansion where the old owner is sick and the staff is down to less than a dozen. All the hundreds of rooms all empty. It's really a very oppressive emptiness. I don't particularly like reading that book but when I read the series I always read it in its proper place.

Of course none of this stuff compares with the crushing infinite emptiness of space and time. Not art but kinda the theme of nature on a universal scale. I don't like to think about it.

[booklyn]

Ever notice how perfectly everything fills up the space it would leave if it weren't there?
y s

[Johanna]

So are you sure it's the 10th Symphony of Shostakovich or what? How does it compare to Beethoven's 5th? Is the entire movement built of a 4-note motif?

[lissener]

So are you sure it's the 10th Symphony of Shostakovich or what? How does it compare to Beethoven's 5th? Is the entire movement built of a 4-note motif?
Damn. I'm not sure, and I don't have any of my Shost. with me. I spose I could pay the liberry's ransom . . .

[Miss Purl McKnittington]

Hmm. The first thing that popped into my head was Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World (http://www.people.virginia.edu/~opr9t/psyc/img/wyeth_medium.jpg).

[Zeldar]

Hmm. The first thing that popped into my head was Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World (http://www.people.virginia.edu/~opr9t/psyc/img/wyeth_medium.jpg).

Magnificent reply! I got chill bumps.

[explore like dora]

It would only be contradicted if Didi and Gogo had killed themselves. Instead, they wait for Mr. Godot every day, despite the fact that he never comes.
I dispute this entirely. If Didi and Gogo had killed themselves, they would have been denying futility by doing what they spent the entire play unable to do - taking action to affect something. Their failure to even kill themselves makes their situation nihilistic, because it shows their inability to have any control over their lives, even right down to the decision as to whether they continue living them o not. They can't do anything except wait for Godot, and that's more through force of inertia than force of will.

The only things that really change in Godot are the surroundings - the tree dies (or loses it's leaves - I forget) and Pozzo and Lucky grow increasingly more helpless and incapacitated. The play is an excellent example of what the OP is looking for.

I have a feeling Endgame could also apply, but it's been so long since I've seen it/read it that I can't really provide much in the way of detail backing up my assertion.

As for other examples, I would suggest a track by Auburn Lull called "Direction and Destination." It's a near-ambient electronic instrumental which manages to beautifully capture a near absence of anything, but never becomes dull. It's entirely captivating, but it sounds like almost nothing.

Similarly, Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" track is made up of only her voice, multi-tracked and treated with effects. It's very beautiful and the interplay between the silences and the densely layered vocals makes the absence of other instrumentaton as important as what the song is made up of. Also, it nicely fits in with the actual lyrics, which touch on a new abscene - "oily marks appear on walls, where pleasure, moments, hung before," or "the dust has only just begun to form crop circles in the carpet" - it's about what happens after something, not thge event itself.

Or you could try the Ying Yang Twins' "Wait (The Whisper Song)," which consists only of a drum machine emitting sub-bass thumps, finger-snaps and the Twins' rap, which they whisper instead of shouting (as they usually do).

Then there's the movie About Schmidt, in which the character's emptiness provides the direction for the film, and just to add another level, there's the fact that Jack Nicholson plays the title role in a manner almost completely devoid of Nicholson mannerisms.

I think the idea of absence plays a role in many of Shakespeare's tragedies - King Lear, Macbeth, and Hamlet all feature the theme to some extent - see Lear's descent into madness, for instance.

And finally, W.H. Auden's poem, "Musée des Beaux-Arts," which you can see here (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~creswell/auden.html), is not so much about tragedy as it is about the world going on unaware and unconcerned with it.