*"Absence" is Presence
I found this in the book I'm working on:
Light and shadow: you need both to paint a scene or tell a story. To represent three dimensions on a flat surface, you need light to form the object and shadow to give it shape.
In composing a picture or a story, you pay attention to negative and positive space. The positive space is what you want the viewer's eye to focus on. But negative space also has substance and shape. It isn't the absence of something; it's a presence.
So true.