Horror Vacui -- Sept 27, 2010

Ask yourself, would you rather be in a building staring at blank walls, or with something that has some form of ornamentation?

If this ornamentation was to hang on the wall would you rather it be confined in a box, or would you prefer it to fill the space?

Is it more important to allow artwork to breathe or is it more socially acceptable for beauty to be confined in a box, seen or unseen?

There are hundreds of considerations to be made when constructing a piece of art, more so in the display of said piece(s).

For many there is a certain degree of fear in the notion of empty space. Known in the art world as Horror Vacui, the morbidly sounding art movement unsurprisingly had its start in places such as 19th century psychiatric hospitals and insane asylums. One such patient a Richard

Dadd, become one of the pioneers of this movement. Locked away in his cell, Dadd had little to do. Managing to acquire some art supplies, Dadd set to work on a project that would eventually take nine years to finish. "Fairly Feller's Master Stroke" was one of the first, most influential pieces in this movement. Upon its release, the art community seemingly didn't know what to think. The notion of opening the borders was a new concept to some, but the breathing room enabled in such a movement helped to grow a relatively new movement in the modern art community (at the time).

Moving from the 1

9th century to the current, many artists have adopted the horror vacui style of art. S. Clay Wilson, Robert Crumb, and Robert Williams leaders of the underground comic movement adopted this art style, eventually becoming masters. This style of art would go on to influence many other comic artists such as Frank Miller and Will Eisner.

This movement also has the distinction of transcending across many national and cultural bounds. Examples of horror vacui can be seen in items as far ranging as the clothing worn by people in Middle and South America to the "Where's Waldo?" children's book series.

The majority of the works in this movement express a wide range of emotions, with paranoid claustrophobia being one of the most common. The denial of "open space" (fascinating term, considering the inclusion of borders could just as easily suffocate a piece) to some could be interpreted as the denial of the future/unknown. To others, this movement seen as an adoption of anarchy, some less minimalist examples of such can be seen in works by Jackson Pollock.

Since its inception in a mental hospital, this form of art can be seen in the works of Joe Coleman, and Todd Schorr. With the ever expanding art world one ought to wonder where the horror vacui movement would take us next, especially seeing as how this raw art style often works on fall wall interior designs among others.