Technique composition: Horror Vacui

“Horror Vacui”

[fear of empty space]

In visual art, horror vacui (/ˈhɔrər ˈvɑːkjuːaɪ/; from Latin “fear of empty space”), also kenophobia, from Greek “fear of the empty”), is the filling of the entire surface of a space or an artwork with detail.

Origins

The term is associated with the Italian art critic and scholar Mario Praz, who used it to describe the suffocating atmosphere and clutter of interior design in the Victorian age.[2] Older, and more artistically esteemed examples can be seen on Migration period art objects like the carpet pages of Insular illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells. This feeling of meticulously filling empty spaces also permeates Arabesque Islamic art from ancient times to the present. Another example comes from ancient Greece during the Geometric Age (1100 – 900 BCE), when horror vacui was considered a stylistic element of all art. The mature work of the French Renaissance engraver Jean Duvet consistently exhibits horror vacui.

 

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Daniel Canogar Horror Vacui, 1999
Vacui’s printed wallpaper instillation of repetitive hands invokes the experience of haptic technology through virtual environments that Vacui describes as ‘the obsessive search for the tactile’.
The strawberry thief (flower and bird pattern). Chintz (1884) Design by William Morris

The strawberry thief (flower and bird pattern). Chintz (1884) Design by William Morris

 

Exploration on Horror Vacui coming up on the next post

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