The Trouble with Space in Painting

Name: The Trouble with Space in Painting
Price: 44.99 AUD
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ISBN: 9781350253704

A Critical History

James Hyde

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Paperback

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English

Bloomsbury Academic
19 March 2026

Theory of art; Philosophy: aesthetics

Series: Aesthetics and Contemporary Art

James Hyde, a practicing painter, presents a radical and historically detailed investigation into how the concept of pictorial space in art emerged.

Using primary documents and a selection of images, Hyde exposes what many will find surprising—that space only becomes part of the descriptive apparatus of art and architecture at the turn of the 20th century, not earlier. Remarkably, this is the first critical study of pictorial space as a historical construction. In this retelling of art history, Hyde presents it as a concept bound to historical circumstance, developing —often contentiously—in philosophy, mathematics and science, to finally become common in 20th century theorizations of art.

Hyde investigates and identifies the historical moments when space first enters discussions about art and how it originally developed in religion, philosophy, mathematics and science. He shows that only after several key controversies were stabilized that space finally emerged as a topic for visual art at the turn of the 20th century. The stories of these debuts introduce Kant, Poincare and Panofsky, thinkers who provided theories of space that were taken up by artists. They reveal the creative and imaginative ideas that forged the belief that space is essential to understanding art.

The ease of applying space to almost any context makes space prevalent today. It is unexamined faith, rather than a clear-eyed understanding of its historical construction that currently anchors space within the discourse of art. Hyde’s original reading of what has become a broad, catch-all concept provides a reconsideration of the foundations of the history and philosophy of visual art.

By: James Hyde
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 540g
ISBN: 9781350253704
ISBN 10: 1350253707
Series: Aesthetics and Contemporary Art
Pages: 328
Publication Date: 19 March 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction. Setting the Stage 1. Early Inheritances of Space 2. Perspective and the Renaissance: the Diagram and Optics 3. Space Begins to Look Modern 4. Hildebrand, Kant and Florence 5. Frontiers of Mathematics and Physics 6. Space on the Verge 7. Space Returns to Order 8. The Semiological Kudzu of Space Afterword. A Painter Writes Bibliography Index

James Hyde is a a studio artist and abstract painter.

Reviews for The Trouble with Space in Painting: A Critical History

‘‘In this provocative study James Hyde disrupts and then reintroduces us to one of our most frequently used terms in visual art: space. Beginning in the 13th century Hyde traces the undiscovered history of space as a pictorial as well as phenomenological construction. Every page of this brilliant investigation rewards the reader and viewer.’’ -- Tom Huhn * Professor of Art History, School of Visual Arts, USA * ‘‘A bracing new history of painting that radically reframes picture-making’s central motif, the illusion of space. Artist and writer Hyde chronicles an astonishing tale that begins in the world before space was ‘invented’ and concludes today, after the space age. Travel through philosophy, mathematics, physics and art, and change how you picture the world.’’ -- Josiah McElheny * Artist And Sculptor, USA * ‘‘Hyde has written a gripping, revelatory critical history of the concept of pictorial space in painting, a concept, we learn, that was unknown to the painters and theorists of the Renaissance and Baroque—it emerged only in the mid-19th century. His book should have radical consequences for how we look at, speak and write about the art of the past and the present.’’ -- Charles W. Haxthausen * Robert Sterling Clark Professor Of Art History, Emeritus, Williams College, USA *