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.

---

Etymology

Origin of picture plane

First recorded in 1790–1800

Example Sentences

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

“We were going to have the picture plane parallel to the walls of structures we were shooting, always. The buildings couldn’t have converging lines. Steven wanted that formal graphic design.”

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 17, 2024

“But it is an arbitrary ban. The flatness of the picture plane is no more a truth than was the flatness of the world before Columbus.”

From New York Times • Dec. 17, 2022

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

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