# Absence/Emptiness as a theme in art **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 21, 2006, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993 "2006-01-21T16:17:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/41 "2006-01-30T07:30:39Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/42 "2006-01-31T07:36:07Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/43 "2006-01-31T14:01:20Z")
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.) ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/44 "2006-02-02T07:31:55Z")
Ever notice how perfectly everything fills up the space it would leave if it weren’t there? ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/45 "2006-02-02T08:08:39Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![booklyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@booklyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklyn)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/46 "2006-02-02T10:07:26Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Ever notice how perfectly everything fills up the space it would leave if it weren’t there? y s ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/47 "2006-02-03T02:04:59Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/48 "2006-02-03T02:18:09Z")
> [@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? 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 . . . ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/49 "2006-02-03T11:26:30Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/50 "2006-02-03T14:12:16Z")
> [@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). Magnificent reply! I got chill bumps. ---
**Author:** ![explore\_like\_dora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eada6e/32.png) [@explore\_like\_dora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/explore_like_dora)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993/51 "2006-02-03T14:37:16Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > 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. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absence-emptiness-as-a-theme-in-art/340993.md?page=2)