Illusions of Space - Exaggerated Size

Madonna Rucellai, tempera on wood by Duccio, 1285; in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

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In two-dimensional forms of art such as painting, artists usually want to convey feelings of depth and/or space. One of the easiest ways to convey space is through size. We as humans realized that the farther away an object the smaller it became, thus we could convey this in art to add a realistic feeling to a piece. But, in some periods of time and through different styles of art, there has been an idea that by showing a difference in size we could as viewers would be able to understand the differences in importance of the figures.  The larger the people were the higher their status and the more important they were. This idea is called hieratic scaling; it is scaling by size (as an indicator of importance) rather than space. In the picture above we see Madonna (another name for the Virgin Mary) holding the infant Jesus on her lap. We see that she is much larger than any of the other angel figures around her. In addition she is placed right in the center of the piece also adding to her very high status. The infant Jesus on her lap is also quite larger in comparison to the other figures. He and the Virgin Mary are in proportion, only on a larger scale than that of the smaller figures. We can see that Jesus, that although has the body of an infant has the face of a fully-grown adult - also adding to his status. But also because of this illusion of space, we see that it is a scene from out of this world and set in the divine world. There are no trees, or natural space around the figures because we are seeing figures that are godly or above the status of humans and because of their size are above or in a different more divine place than that of the human world. We grasp this concept because of the idea of exaggerated size and the illusion of space it creates. Although this painting has figures in different scales, it still represents space. We understand that there is a Virgin Mary and baby Jesus sitting on a chair surrounded by angels. We understand the depth through the perspective of the chair and the importance of the figures through hieratic scaling. 

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