Alexander Lapin's Plane and Space, or Life Squared sets out his research into the psychology of visual perception of a flat image - a painting, a drawing or a photograph - including both the imagined space behind the picture and the illusory space in front of it. The book can be read as a continuation of Wassily Kandinsky's theoretical work Point and Line to Plane; Lapin explains and demonstrates much of what Kandinsky anticipated, chiefly the claim that everything within a picture is alive, that the picture plane itself is a living thing with its own character, and that if, for Kandinsky, theory's main task was "to find the living," Lapin develops that idea further. The book is addressed to anyone studying the psychology of visual perception, as well as designers, artists and art historians, and to readers who want a deeper understanding of the visual arts.