WEBVTT - Horror Vacui, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.720 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.599 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:20.840 today we're gonna be starting up a series on the 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:26.079 subject of horror vakui, which can be translated directly as 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.800 fear of the void, but has also been paraphrased in 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:34.360 the form of the statement nature of horrors of vacuum. Now, 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:36.640 I think this is gonna be a great subject for us, 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:40.400 because this principle has facets that appear in art, psychology, 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.879 and all kinds of other domains. But it's often traced 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.760 all the way back in its origin to the scientific 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.800 writings of Aristotle in the fourth century b CE. Though 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.440 Aristotle did not use exactly this phrase, of course, how 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:58.120 could he. It's latin um. But he did argue in 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:00.680 his book on Physics that the con incept of a 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:05.000 vacuum in nature was implausible and in fact even worthy 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:09.920 of ridicule. Uh So this occurs in Aristotle's famous Physics. 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.399 This is book for part eight, though his attempted refutation 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.720 of vacuum physics spans several sections. I think it's like 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.080 parts six through nine of the book or so. And 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:24.920 it's interesting that Aristotle does not approach this subject from 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.720 kind of from first principles, but instead he approaches it 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.560 by entering an ongoing debate among other philosophers where there's 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.160 a camp arguing against the existence of empty space, and 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.920 that apparently contains figures like Anexagoras, and then there's a 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.600 camp that argues for the existence of empty space, and 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.919 that contains the Pythagorean school and others. So, in trying 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:51.680 to stake his own claim in this controversy, Aristotle makes 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:56.080 the argument that the existence of empty space is logically incoherent, 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.120 and this leads to a harsh joke at the expense 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.520 of space it's self. He writes, but even if we 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.720 consider it on its own merits, the so called vacuum 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:10.480 will be found to be really vacuous. Huh. That might 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.800 be funny or in ancient Greek. I'm not sure. So. 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.320 I think we'll come back specifically to the history of 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.640 horror vakay in physics in a subsequent part in this series. 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:22.960 But I thought this was a good place to start 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.520 because a lot of people seem to trace this general 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:29.840 idea back to Aristotle, and they often identify him as 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:34.560 sort of the grandfather of this tradition of being intolerant 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.680 of empty space or of the very idea of emptiness. Yeah, 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.200 and just the whole idea that nature of whore is 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:44.440 a vacuum like it's you could you could also kind 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.600 of translated as, hey, anytime there's a place where stuff 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.200 isn't but stuff could be, well, guess where you're gonna 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.880 eventually find stuff right there? Um, And you know, you could. 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.160 You can apply that to economics, you can apply it 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:02.080 to evolution. Um, because for the most part, like various 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.000 interpretations of that hold very true. Yeah. And of course 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.320 there are tons of examples, uh, in in physics where 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:12.280 you can identify the sort of phenomenonomy if, for example, uh, 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.720 interpy particle entropy. If you take a rectangular container and 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:18.760 half of it is filled with gas and the other 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.400 half has no gas in it, Uh, if you just 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:23.720 like let it go on its own and do nothing 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.880 to it, eventually the gas will even out in distribution 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.760 and fill the entire container. That something about nature seems 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.840 to reject that that arbitrary starting point of division and 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.720 interpete tends to just have everything spread out even out 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.840 it doesn't want to let that emptiness remain. Yeah, or 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.080 um on the other end of the spectrum, if you 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.080 have an empty drawer or cabinet in your kitchen, um, 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:54.280 see how long that lasts. Because eventually, eventually something's gonna 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.080 come along and it's going to be the perfect place 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.960 to stick it. Right. But one big place where where 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.960 horror akui has been recognized throughout the years is in 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.920 the world of art, that's right. Yeah, And in this 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.240 we get into you have this softer treatment of the 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.640 vacuum of empty spaces and also a lot of I 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.880 think ultimately discussions are arguments over like what what constitutes 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.120 an empty space and so forth. But um, yeah, and 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:26.480 within the worlds of art and design, horror vacuate basically 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.719 comes down to a tendency to fill blank spaces instead 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.840 of leaving them empty. I've also seen it argued as 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:38.360 a kind of maximalism opposing minimalism. So you know, it's 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.440 like like I'm gonna I'm gonna create this painting or look, 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:43.560 you know, think of it. I guess from like like 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.159 a street art graffiti kind of standpoint, What am I 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:48.839 going to paint on this wall? And how much of 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:50.279 this wall am I going to paint? Well, I'm going 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.280 to paint all of it, and I'm gonna fill it 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.440 with with just so many things? Or are you is 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:57.919 it going to be mostly sort of a blank canvas 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.000 drawing your attention to the one I a songbird that 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:05.680 you've created at the middle of this uh street campus. Yeah. Now, 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:08.320 for for my own part, and I imagine everyone out 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:10.320 there has some version of this, But for my own part, 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.760 my mind quickly goes to a few different handy examples. 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:16.800 Some of my favorite artists do seem to abhor the 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.640 vacuum on some level. For instance, I've I've long been 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.000 a fan of the dark surrealism of of Irving Norman, 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.720 and his work tended to consist of very complex, crowded, 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.960 dynamic expanses that had a lot of like urban and 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:37.200 industrial energy to them, um and and and so. It 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:38.800 has a lot of chaos, it has a lot of 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:40.560 soul listeness, and a lot of it is about sort 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.080 of capturing the spirit as he saw it of the 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:46.920 modern world. Oh, that's interesting that the connection to modernity, 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:48.800 because I think a lot of people over the years 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:53.360 have made this argument that something about how how culture 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:55.560 changes over time. Maybe a lot of this is driven 0:05:55.560 --> 0:06:02.240 by technology results in the constant sort of ingress of 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:07.400 stuff into more and more uh previously unfilled spaces of 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:11.440 your your attentional life. So whereas life used to, at 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.640 least according to this argument, involve a lot more kind 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.280 of boredom and idleness and sort of sitting around with 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.240 your own thoughts, not having anything to do and and 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.400 things like that. Uh, now there's just like always something 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.480 to occupy you and occupy your attention. Yeah, and his 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.880 works in particular, they do have this feeling to them. Um. 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:34.880 The one I included for you to look at here, 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.240 and certainly listeners can look this piece up as well. 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:39.880 This is war and Peace. It's a triptych. And this 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:41.640 is a piece that I've gotten to see in person 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.320 that was on display in San Francisco at least for 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.960 a while. Big piece, and a piece like this is 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.520 great to see in person as well, because you get 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.120 to sort of get a little closer and check out 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.719 some of the many details that make it up. For instance, 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.159 one of the pieces here, you see all these buildings 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:02.479 and it like a a realistic view of skyscrapers in 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:06.320 each little window has somebody inside with like some sort 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:11.240 of paint or horrific or board expression on their face. Um. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.920 So yeah, he he really seems to fill every available 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.960 space with some sort of detail. Mm hmm. Now they're 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.400 plently of older artists that come to mind. Uh, you know, 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:26.080 pre modern artist like Hieronymous Bosh comes to mind. Peter Brugal, 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:30.000 the Elder Um. Another contemporary example that I instantly think 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:32.960 of would be the visionary art of of Alex Gray. 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:37.640 You know, very psychedelic but also just filled with flow 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.520 and color, and there's just this sense of every available 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.960 space has been sort of engulfed by uh, energies that 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.480 cannot normally be viewed with the naked eye. Yeah. Now 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.720 you you raise Hieronymous Bosh, and that really got my 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.239 gears cranking because when it comes to horror Vakawy and Bosh. 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.320 I could be wrong, but I sense a trend in 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:07.040 his religious paintings where there's an association of business with 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:11.960 bad things, with chaos and sin, whereas empty space seems 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:16.520 to be more associated with order and godliness and righteousness. 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.480 So you know, hell is bustling and full and just 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.640 teeming with activity, whereas heaven or maybe the Garden of 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.280 Eden before the Fall is orderly and clean and has 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.120 plenty of empty space, plenty floor space. One example, of course, 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.080 I think of here is the Triptic The Last Judgment, 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:37.480 where if you see, you know, the Garden of Eden, 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.600 apparently a a time before sin, there's just a lot 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.400 of kind of empty ground, is like not a lot 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.520 going on. There's there's plenty of expanses that have yet 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.160 to be filled with anything. And also if you look 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.240 at the middle panel of the Triptic, there is war 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:57.120 and chaos and suffering and disease and violence and stuff 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.440 taking place down on Earth, and it's a very busy seen. 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:02.839 But up above you see Christ and the angels and 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.120 everything is very clean, and there's like not a whole 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.120 lot going on. There's a lot of empty space up 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.200 in the sky. Yeah, this is a great point. So 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:11.640 in a way, I wonder if that's kind of an 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:15.160 inverse horror vakawee where you know that that, like the 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:19.559 the vakawi is actually the indicator of goodness and orderliness, 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:21.880 and and you know, when there's too much stuff going on, 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.480 that's a sign that something has gone wrong, that that 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.520 order has broken down. But clearly this is not a 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:33.200 universal association within art or even within religious art. For example, 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.120 Dante's Paradiso seems to be anything but empty. You know, 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:42.640 the heavens in that vision are crammed with overwhelming, incomprehensibly 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.400 busy stimuli. There's you know, a lot of things where 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.119 He's just like, there was so much I couldn't understand 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.200 what I was looking at. Um. And in some versions 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:55.240 of gnosticism also the sort of ultimate ideal plane of 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:59.600 reality and the sum of all divine potential is called 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:03.600 the clear roma, which in Greek means fullness, the opposite 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:08.000 of emptiness or void, your example of here from the 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.000 last judgment, this this made me think about okay, and 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.200 at least in the middle part of it, you're talking about, 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:16.040 you know, here we have a Christ appearing in the 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.960 sky and everything is a little more open, and we 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.960 see the blue and ultimately the white of of naked 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:26.199 sky there. And I was comparing this to some other 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:28.400 words that I'll mention a second. But it made me wonder, like, 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.400 when is the sky full and when is the sky empty? Um? 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:34.640 Because it seems like on some level a blue or 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.600 white sky in a painting is certainly a different animal 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.760 compared to say, a red sky, in the same way 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:45.000 that the standard wall color for a museum is usually, 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:47.679 at least today not black or red, but a nice 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.840 white or a muted gray. But on the other hand, 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.840 like a night sky is not necessarily like the darkness 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:59.280 of space is not necessarily understood to be uh full, 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.440 but I guess it could be depending on how you're looking. 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.640 It's certainly full of stars. Yeah, and specifically, I mean 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.440 the skies are, yeah, they're They're rendered in very different ways. 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.200 I mean sometimes the stars themselves are very busy. I 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.240 think of, I guess this is obvious to go to. 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.800 But the starry night yeah, yeah. Uh. And as as 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.680 far as Dante goes, I I instantly thought back to 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:25.679 Gustav dres Later so much later illustrations of the Divine Comedy. 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.800 And sometimes those do and sometimes they don't match up 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.880 with this general idea. Like there's one particularly famous image 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:37.760 from Dore's illustrations where we see um let's let see 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.160 um Dante and his his guy. Who's this guy in Paradisio. 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.800 It's uh in the Paradiso It's it's Beatrice. It's Beatrix. Yes, 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.560 that's right. So it's it's Dante and Beatrice, and here 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:51.400 in front of them is just this incomprehensible. Uh. It's 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:55.600 almost like the eye of Sauron with with just multitudes 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.320 of swirling angelic beings all around it. Yeah, it's all 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:04.080 you're looking into, just a tunnel made of like nanotechnology, 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.600 except it's it's all angel wings. Yeah. And then there's 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.559 another one of Dora's illustrations where we see Dante and 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.960 b standing here on a cloud and we see multiple 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.240 rings of angels, And certainly there are a lot of 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.520 angels in each ring, but there's a lot more open space, 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.720 particularly above them, and there's an openness to that image 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.120 that you don't see in a lot of the Doray 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:31.680 illustrations of any of the three realms of the Divine Comedy. Agreed, 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.680 And so that that division, uh seems to be a 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.240 you know, whether you want to represent beauty and holiness 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.800 as as a kind of incredibly busy phenomenon or as 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.160 something with a lot of empty space in it. I 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:46.839 don't see an overwhelming trend one way or the other. 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.040 I mean, it seems like a sort of a pretty 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.160 evenly divided issue of preference, because I think of tons 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.000 of paintings from all throughout history and all throughout different 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:00.480 cultures where empty space is clearly the thing that makes 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.200 the painting so beautiful or the art so beautiful. One 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.600 that came to my mind while we were getting ready 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.439 for this episode was there's a Chinese work of art 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.400 from I think the thirteenth century called on a Mountain 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.160 Path in Spring by Ma Yuan. Do you know that one? 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.280 Rob I have just pulled it up in front of me. Oh, yeah, 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.120 this is beautiful, and I'm not familiar with this piece. Yeah. 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:24.120 One thing I really like about it, so to try 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.920 to describe it, shows like a man on a path 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.520 and there are sort of like some trees drooping over 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.400 around him, and there's a bird in flight up ahead 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.480 of him. Uh, and you see the ridges of some 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.480 mountains in in the background in one half of the painting. 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:42.840 But one thing I really love about this painting is 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.199 that essentially only half of it is filled in. So 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.680 behind the man you see the outlines of all these forms. 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.600 There are tree trunks, and uh, there's the path. You 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.320 see a little you know, ridges and indentations in the 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:57.840 ground and tree roots and shrubs, and you see the 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.480 mountains in the background, and then in the they're half 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.880 of the painting. Essentially all the forms just disappear and 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.400 it's almost entirely empty space except for a little suggestion 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.800 of the path continuing along on the ground and a bird. 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:15.360 Mm hmmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's a beautiful piece, you know. 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.920 And I also want to mention that many of the 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:19.800 artists that one might point to and say, Okay, this 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.440 is someone who definitely abhors the vacuum. Uh, they're they're 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.640 definitely a maximalist. You can also find plenty of examples 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.280 where they play with opening things up a little bit, 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.480 like even just uh, looking back through some of Irving 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.200 Norman's works, like, there are of some pieces where you 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:39.640 have fairly sizeable expanses of say sky, sometimes blue sky, 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:45.240 other times extremely blood red skies, but sky. Nonetheless, I 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.000 don't know what this is. So my my ruined, vulgar 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:51.960 mind looks at one of these paintings, the one with 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:56.640 the red sky, and I just think hell razor too. Yeah, 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:58.520 I mean, it is a it is a hellish image. 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.640 M have some of those vibes to it, for sure. 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:03.960 I think it's that the red sky and then the 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:08.000 sort of like maze of walls beneath that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.680 this one is called war Wounded Ends. That's another one 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.440 of my favorite pieces by Irving Norman. It is beautiful. 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.920 I apologize for the Barker comparison. No, no, no, I 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:29.080 mean I think it's happening. Thank, thank thank. I mentioned 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:32.440 the walls of of a museum earlier because I think 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.840 this is also key as well, because when you think 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:41.040 of gallery walls and even picture frames in a modern sense, 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:45.360 and we tend to think of a very minimalist um features, right. 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:47.800 The trend nowadays at least is, of course, the display 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:51.920 works of art in unassuming frames on largely blank walls, 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:55.200 with at least some amount of space between each work, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.360 sort of give allow each work a little room to breathe. 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:00.960 But this was of course not always the fashion, and 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:05.120 isn't always the fashion. Maximalist and minimalist approaches are just 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.160 trends and ensure that the complex wallpaper may be pulled 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.040 away in the geometric wall to wall carpeting, maybe ripped 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.840 up from space, but given enough time, these things may 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.640 come back into fashion again and you'll get even crazier 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:24.960 wallpaper plastered back up and even more complex carpet installed 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:27.680 wall to wall. But there are some interesting properties involved, 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.080 like what does it do when you have something worth 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.760 looking at in the midst of white space? Uh? You know, 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.560 what does emptiness? What does the void do? And there's 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:42.040 an offsided quote from art historian Ernst Gombric of nineteen nine, 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.520 two thousand and one uh, in which he stated, quote, 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.440 the richer the elements of the frame, the more the 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.960 center will gain in dignity. I believe this is a 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.480 part of his theory of perception, and I think I 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.800 think it's a pretty insightful statement, and we can we 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.200 can apply it to the blank walls behind a canvas, 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.920 to the assuming picture frame, or even elements within a 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:07.280 given work where the busy aspects of a piece focus 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.560 our attention towards something more open, like for instance, Christ 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:14.840 floating in the sky above. Uh, this otherwise chaotic scene 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:18.399 and painting by Bosh. Oh, that's kind of interesting. So 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:22.000 that might explain the popularity of these very ornate, highly 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:25.800 textured you know, frames around paintings with all these ridges 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:30.040 and swirls and so forth. Yeah, and certainly you will 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.240 you will often encounter, even in modern museums, sometimes these 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.159 older pieces that are still in very ornate frames. And 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.639 I'm always interested in that because, I guess because it 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:41.760 kind of throws me for a curve comparing it to 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.640 more modern works and modern framing. UM. And then you'll 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.160 encounter this piece that has some sort of picture frame 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.640 that I mean could arguably be seen as distracting from 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.800 the piece itself, but but maybe not maybe guiding you 0:17:54.840 --> 0:18:00.520 in now. As far as the term horror vacuie goes, 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:04.040 depending on tastes and trends, you'll see it in the 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:08.760 art world, sometimes invoked as praise, other times invoked as criticism. UM. 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.520 Take the the often dizzy art of Jackson Pollock of 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.480 nineteen twelve through nineteen fifty six. UM. It's kind of 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.960 a prime example of this duality. Even though not all 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:22.840 of his works abhore the vacuum, you'll find you'll find 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:25.320 a little space in some of his pieces, and I 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:27.800 think maybe those are the ones that I I may 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.520 be a little more drawn to. Oh, but you mean that, 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.880 Like critics have described it in terms of horror vakay 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.600 both positively and negatively, like this is good because it 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:41.240 sates my horror vakawee, or this is bad because it's 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.919 just a product of horror Vaki. Yeah, yeah, and I 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.679 think and I think in the case of of of Pollock, 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:49.879 and people are more familiar with art criticism out there 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:51.480 that make and can chime in on this. But it 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.320 seems like you see it invoked more as a criticism, 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:57.680 you know, almost like, well, there's clearly this artist is 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.720 afraid of the vacuum. Other Wise they would have given 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.040 us a little more space. But I don't know, even 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.199 the really busy Jackson polite pieces, which which I think 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.280 I have also had the chance to see in person, 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:11.640 some of these pieces like they really need to see 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:13.760 in person, because you do get it's a similar situation. 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:15.240 You can take it all in, but you can step 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:17.960 a little closer and sort of look at just some 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.320 of the closer details, and it's really enthralling. Now. The 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.080 term has also been used to describe cultural artistic traditions. 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.000 I've seen it used to describe the work of the 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.960 ancient Egyptians, as well as the trend in Islamic art 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:37.479 towards the expansive use of geometric patterns. Apparently, however, the 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:41.720 originator of the term in art criticism itself was Italian 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.240 born art and literature critic Mario praz Who of eighteen 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:50.000 ninety six through two, who used it mostly to slam 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:55.320 the cluttered visual interior design one sees particularly of in 0:19:55.440 --> 0:20:00.440 Victorian households. Victorian design. Uh Joe I included a uh 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.440 sort of stereotypical image of a victor, of a rich 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:07.600 Victorian sitting room here, and I think it raises the 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.840 question is this too busy? Or is this just comfy? 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:15.240 Is this? Is this like hoarded fancy items? Or is 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.960 this somebody who want to do surround themselves with the 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.879 things they like and sort of warm themselves in the 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.120 glow of those things. So so the critical idea here 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.360 could be, yeah, like is there too much patterned wallpaper, 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:31.120 too much patterned upholstery on the furniture, too many little 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.320 do d ads all over the place. It's just the 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:38.280 room is too busy. You should live in a roth coo. Yeah. 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:40.200 And I guess one of the things that really comes 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:42.399 out and thinking about in terms of art is, of course, 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:48.520 art criticism is generally highly subjective, and so also is 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:51.440 the the use of a term like horror of vacuie 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:53.959 in terms of of art and design, or any kind 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.600 of creative endeavor and uh in film is not immune 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:00.600 to this. Um. I was really excited by this because 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:02.440 I was looking around for I don't think I was 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.920 even particularly looking for something about film, but I ran 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:13.879 across discussion of horror vacuie in Jollo films. Yes, Vangoria Magazines. 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:18.159 Alexandra Helen Nicholas has written film criticism discussing the subject 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:22.920 of horror vacuie in Jollo films. The book in question, 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.000 which I haven't had time to read in full yet, 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:28.240 but what I've read so far is is quite good. 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:33.240 It's the Jollo canvas art excess and horror cinema shallow 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:37.280 is absolutely a genre of excess, and that is part 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:41.880 of what makes it so enticing. Is it's just unrestrained 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:48.480 expressiveness and gaudiness. Yeah, yeah, it's Um, it's this of course, 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:51.200 largely we're dealing with the tag in cinema here, though 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:53.960 though it's influence becomes such that it spills out into 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.280 European cinema in general and also has a big influence 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.800 on the global slasher genre. Uh yeah, it's generally stylish 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:06.320 to some degree gratuitous. Uh you know, it's flashy and 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.800 uh so Hella Nicholas here points out that naturally, uh 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.639 horror vacaie doesn't just apply to highbrow art. She cites 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:17.840 the illustrations of Robert Crumb as an example, and then 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:21.320 points to a couple of other horror cinema examples possible 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:26.080 examples such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Uh, particularly than the 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:30.600 original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Particularly I believe she was pointing out, uh, 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:32.680 these some of these early scenes where we're not even 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:35.960 getting into the blood and the excess um, but just 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.280 like scenes where the the inside of the Chainsaw Massacre 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.600 household is just cluttered with all sorts of of you know, 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:47.960 uncanny items like skulls and bird bones and knickknacks. And 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:50.000 she also points to some other examples where there's like 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:52.439 just where it's a similar situation where a lot of 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:55.600 disturbing stuff sort of thrown at you so fast and 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:58.760 and and you don't general rule in in the horror, 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:01.280 you know, don't don't show the monster too long, don't 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.480 show the gore effect too long, and it can kind 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:09.840 of overpower you like, overpowers the circuits with unease or revulsion. 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:15.000 But to read a quick quote here quote in Jallo cinema. 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:19.439 While certainly not lacking in moments of excessive blood and guts, 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:23.600