picture plane

American  

noun

1. the plane of a painting, drawing, or the like, that is in the extreme foreground of a picture, is coextensive with but not the same as the material surface of the work, is the point of visual contact between the viewer and the picture, and is conceived as a major structural element in the production of abstract or illusionistic forms.

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Etymology

Origin of picture plane

First recorded in 1790–1800

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

picture plane

They seem to be lowering Christ’s corpse, which is thrust forward from the picture plane, onto the altar below the painting.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 27, 2026

First fundamental term: Rückenfigur, noun, German, a “figure from the back,” looking away from the viewer, establishing a frontier between the picture plane and the background.

From New York Times ● Apr. 20, 2023

Taylor pumps life into the static picture plane, which creates a visual friction that can make the figures he chooses riveting to see.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 8, 2022

Color photographs from 1996 — flat, frontal, emphasizing the two dimensions of the picture plane — show the gated and graffiti-tagged facades of rundown buildings in downtown L.A.’s garment district.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2022

The pane of glass thus constitutes the picture plane, and the image drawn on to it can then be copied on to another surface.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

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