Closure

The recognition of meaning in an otherwise unclear or incomplete image, because the brain has been able to draw on previous experiences to discover sufficient similarity between the image and those memories. Bringing something to a conclusion.Examples: triangle on a triangle square on four circles In these images, negative spaces have been shaped and placed among positive spaces so that a viewer can make closure on a triangle, a square, and a cube.Here is an animation of four pictures, each an arrangement of colored squares of decreasing size, increasing number, and increasing complexity. As the animation progresses there is a moment at which the viewer identifies the image from which the images were derived. This experience might be described as achieving closure or making a new gestalt. This experience is also likely to arrive earlier in the sequence the more times one sees the animation. Even the final image is actually a greatly distorted reproduction of the original picture. See derived image, metamorphosis, and pixel. For more examples of images inviting closure, see the titles of ArtLex's pages about words beginning with Sc-Sd and X,Y, and Z.Also see coherence, gestalt, meaning, optical illusion, and projection principle.