weiß raum

White spaces are the blank or unprinted part of a text or drawing revealing the view on the character base, the white piece of paper. Usually, these material recesses are overlooked. They represent those parts of the texts and drawings that bring them forth in the first place, though. In addition to their purely structural function, white spaces can have a poetic and aesthetic effect. Typographers, writers and draughtsmen of Modernism use the visually striking blank space as a meaningful sign. In its ambiguity and openness, the white space reveals itself as a productive stylistic device of modern and post-modern modes of expression.
The interdisciplinary work at hand develops the phenomenon of white spaces in literature and visual arts in parallel and in mutual illumination. To this end, the typographical term "white space" is used to describe gaps in the texts of writers and is borrowed as an expression of free parts in drawings for the discourse of image studies. From a phenomenological, semiotic and receptive-aesthetic perspective, the dialectical relationship of black signs and white spaces in literary texts and artistic drawings is examined in order to clarify the poetic and aesthetic impact of white spaces used by artists. Subsequently, this work describes the development of white space in literature and fine arts from symbolism to the present in an extensive historical chapter.