horror vacui

(adjective)

From the Latin, "fear of empty space," it is a style of painting when the entire surface of a space is filled with patterns and figures.

Related Terms

Examples of horror vacui in the following topics:

  • Pottery in the Greek Geometric Period

    • For one, the entire vessel is decorated in a style known as horror vacui, a style in which the entire surface of the medium is filled with imagery.
    • Every empty space in these scenes is filled with geometric shapes—M's, diamonds, starbursts—demonstrating the Geometric painter's horror vacui.

  • Minoan Painting

    • The style is known as horror vacui, which is Latin for "fear of empty space."

  • Mexican Muralism

    • He never depicted the horrors of the war but what he perceived to be the social benefits from it.
    • The other two did fight, and both expressed the horrors of war in their work.
    • Unlike other artists, Orozco never glorified the Mexican Revolution, having fought in it, but rather depicted the horrors of this war.

  • Categorizing Art

    • For instance, well recognized genres in film are western, horror and romantic comedy.

  • Romanesque Architecture: The Church of Saint-Lazare

    • Indeed, the bottom of the tympanum underneath the weighing of the souls has an inscription which states, "May this terror terrify those whom earthly error binds for the horror of the images here in this manner truly depicts what will be."

  • Marble Sculpture and Architecture in the Greek Early Classical Period

    • A seer, however, watches it in horror as he foresees the death of Oenomaus.