Plane

A plane, in art, is any flat, level surface, as well as a distinct facet or area of such a surface in painting, drawing, or sculpture. In painting one speaks of planes when analysing how an image is divided into separate areas of colour, tone, or form, arranged at different notional levels of depth: the foreground, middle ground, and background. Each such plane helps to organise the space of the composition and to create a sense of depth or, conversely, of flatness. The concept of the plane is especially important for understanding how artists construct space and form. In traditional illusionistic painting, planes are ordered so as to imitate the recession of space into depth. In Cubism, developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in the early twentieth century, form was broken down into numerous intersecting, shifted planes that depicted an object simultaneously from different points of view and destroyed a single perspective. In sculpture and painting, planes also determine how light reflects off surfaces, shaping volume and modelling form. The analysis of planes remains an important tool of art history, allowing one to describe the structure of a work, the organisation of space, and the way form is constructed on a flat or three-dimensional support.