Negative space is not a concept that is not exclusive to the Japanese culture. It is seen in multiple areas of Western culture. Bill Evans, a jazz pianist, described the process of improvisation in Jazz as an analogy to the improvisation in Japanese painting: 

 

"There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.

The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.

This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflections, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician" (Bill Evans, SFJAZZ.org).