English translation: tonal depth / depth of colour
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German to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting
German term or phrase:farbräumliche Tiefe
"Linien und Liniensegmente verknüpfen sich in wechselnder Zuordnung zu einzelnen Binnenkonstellationen, die das Geflecht von Gitterstrukturen mit Zonen ***farbräumlicher Tiefe*** und Modulationen farbiger Lichthaftigkeit hinterlegen."
Explanation: Maybe even saturation of colour/colour saturation
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 3 hrs (2011-07-18 12:41:41 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Aerial perspective - Due to light scattering by the atmosphere, objects that are a great distance away have lower luminance contrast and lower color saturation. In computer graphics, this is often called "distance fog". The foreground has high contrast; the background has low contrast. Objects differing only in their contrast with a background appear to be at different depths. The color of distant objects are also shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum (e.g., distant mountains). Some painters, notably Cézanne, employ "warm" pigments (red, yellow and orange) to bring features forward towards the viewer, and "cool" ones (blue, violet, and blue-green) to indicate the part of a form that curves away from the picture plane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_perception
I chose "tonal depth". Thank you, Helen, and thank you to everyone else, too, for the interesting discussion! 4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer
Like Helen I read this as referring to the colour only, with farbräumlich being an adjective based on Farbraum, not including a separate reference to räumlich, so no need to refer to spatiality or perspective.
I agree that your other examples refer to spatiality. But here it is depth of colour/tone, which in itself may create spatial illusions (eg one colour appearing to be nearer the picture plane than another; one colour appearing to recede. Think reds and whites, for instance.
Thanks for your comments, Helen. You may well be right that "Farbraum" is referring to the colour spectrum rather than spatiality as such. The text does, however, talk about spatiality in the paintings, such as in the following sentence (on the previous page):
"Im Gitter aus Senkrechten und Waagerechten entstehen an den Kreuzungspunkten zweier Linien durch die Überlagerung räumliche Abstände, welche die Raumwirkungen der Farben aufgreifen oder sie kontrastieren."
I'm not sure if "farbräumlich" is referring to this or not.
I would usually translate "Farbraum" with (colour) spectrum. but in this case I'm somewhat stumped by "farbräumlich", after reading your entry. How would you combine the two concepts? At first I was considering "perspective depth of colour" (spectrum?). Only answer if you have the time and desire to do so.
I respect your expertise on the subject, and would like to ask you if, in this case "räumlich" has little to do with spatiality? I am not a German native speaker, so it seems like a "language trap".
I would suggest that Farbraum here means colour spectrum, so these passages/areas contain a wide spectrum of colours. I think you will need to rewrite the sentence a bit.
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Answers
12 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
color and spatial depth
Explanation: This is what I came up with when I thought of 'Farbe' and 'räumliche Tiefe'.
Trained artists are keenly aware of the various methods for indicating spatial depth (color shading, distance fog, perspective and relative size), and take advantage of them to make their works appear "real".
Explanation: Maybe even saturation of colour/colour saturation
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 3 hrs (2011-07-18 12:41:41 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Aerial perspective - Due to light scattering by the atmosphere, objects that are a great distance away have lower luminance contrast and lower color saturation. In computer graphics, this is often called "distance fog". The foreground has high contrast; the background has low contrast. Objects differing only in their contrast with a background appear to be at different depths. The color of distant objects are also shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum (e.g., distant mountains). Some painters, notably Cézanne, employ "warm" pigments (red, yellow and orange) to bring features forward towards the viewer, and "cool" ones (blue, violet, and blue-green) to indicate the part of a form that curves away from the picture plane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_perception
The translation workplace 
