Space perception

What can make a human to feel an open space and to associate himself with something unmeasured and borderless? How to express weightlessness and heavy masses? How to open and close the space? How to show the energy of movement and static? Since which moment a human eye starts to define among colors of paint concrete objects, landscapes? At the same time, since which moment human mind starts to recognize painted as a part of the world it get used to or associate himself with this story illustrated on the canvas?