Horror Vacui It is a Latin phrase that means “terror of the void” “Nature shocks the void“(“Nature Abhorret in Vacuo“). For this reason, as it would also have supported Baruch Spinoza Many centuries later, there would be no “empty spaces” in nature, and those apparently such would always be full of some liquid or gas: a theory that contradicts the thought of the ancient Pythagorean school and the atomist philosophy, so the existence of emptiness was not only possible but a necessity.
In the artistic field, however, theHorror Vacui indicates the tendency to completely fill the white spaces of a work (for example with detailed details, or with reasons). The art critic and scholar Mario Praz used the term to describe the excessive use of‘ornament in design during the Victorian agebut you can see many examples of this practice well before: for example in the art of ancient Greece during the geometric age, In Islamic art from antiquity to todayor in the miniator manuscriptslike the beautiful Kells book (IX century), whose reasons and symbols may have performed not only decorative, but also allegorical functions.
And again, in more recent times, the horror vacui is evident in the work of the French Renaissance incisor Jean Duvet or in some styles of postmodern graphics, with works by artists such as David Carson or Vaughan Oliverand in the underground comic by S. Clay Wilson, Robert Crumb, Robert Williams.
In a sense, even the illustrations of the series of children’s books Where is Wally? They are an example of Horror Vacui!
