“natura abhorret a vacuo”, (nature shuns emptiness).
The principle-axiom of horror vacui, developed from Aristotelian Physics, was based on an anthropomorphic conception of Nature, which ascribed to it human emotions and states of mind, including a congenital repugnance to the vacuum within physical reality; this aversion induced Nature to strive so that the vacuum could never be produced. Aristotle’s Arabic commentators, in contrast to their Greek counterparts, produced a large number of arguments and experimental proofs against the possibility of the vacuum. Within scholastic philosophy, the thesis was accepted in its assumptions, but not in its consequences, which involved the assertion of a limit to the potentia Dei absoluta; it was denied,then, that ‘natural forces’ could produce the vacuum.
(òrror vàkui〉(lat. “horror of the void”). – Phrase by which was expressed a fundamental concept of aristhottelian physics, which, in controversy with democritean physics, asserted the nonexistence of empty spaces (nature abhors a vacuum); it is sometimes repeated with allusion to the tendency to eliminate all empty space in ornamentation, furniture and the like.1
Renato Barilli, in the entry Art in the Encyclopaedia of the Twentieth Century […] characterized by there rejection of images in favour of a lush decorativism, aimed at defeating emptiness, according to that attitude known as horror vacui. It is also a way of erasing the baleful separation, typically Western and indeed one of the most conspicuous fruits of the ‘Gutenberg galaxy,’ between words and images.2
But is this emptiness they talk about only the physical void?
Can the connection be made with the internal hollowness?
According to our research based on Massimo Fagioli’s Birth Theory, we can make the connection with internal hollowness.
In Death Instinct and Knowledge Massimo Fagioli already from the very first pages speaks of internal emptiness brought about by the annulment drive and an internal deficiency: […] On the other hand, if there is not enough libido, the disappearance fantasy will turn into annulment, death instinct, total loss, with related internal hollowness and darkness. All this will lead to ‘neurosis’, exhibitionism, masochism, and the search for the physical objects that have been lost.3
Let us try to understand what this horror vacui is, which has crossed centuries and geographical boundaries marking the history of art especially Western art.
From what can be gleaned from the myriad markings of art historians is when we are faced with a density of detail in the image at the limits of the space allowed:
[…]Figurative compositions typical of Archaic (Greek, ed.) art, in painting and relief, are carried out by horizontal and parallel bands or friezes, with the obvious concern to use the entire available surface,leaving no empty fields either at the top or at the bottom, due to that horror vacui generally observed in the early stages of art 4.
The same thing occurs in mosaic decorations:[…]
According to Herzfeld, there were two dominant formal approaches: the repetition of the same motifs, albeit with modifications, and the total coverage of surfaces, according to the famous principle of horror vacui that has been identified in much of Islamic art 5.
In the mouldings of Roman temples, with Rabirius, the Roman Architect who lived during the time of Domitian:
[…] In the entablatures of Domitian buildings, two small rings are constantly found between the dentils: they have been thought to represent the architect’s signature; he would thus have managed to circumvent the imperial ban on marking works of art with his own name by resorting to this means,which also had the advantage of filling in the empty space between the dentils, in accordance with that principle of horror vacui, which then began to appear in Roman art and was to become even more pronounced in the art of the late Empire 6.
Attending Analisi Collettiva Seminars and lectures at the University of Chieti, Psychiatrist Massimo Fagioli was constantly proposing to us his method of thinking made for Small Logics.
With this method, research began to find links between internal emptiness, and the distressing crowding in certain artistic images.
The opposite has also been done, seeking a humanisation in works of art, as for example with the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton, where in the 17 years of his reign […] The break with tradition is well evidenced by art 7.
In 1972, with the publication of Death Instinct and Knowledge, the turning point of the human being was realised, an epochal change that Fagioli imprinted with the Birth Theory, according to which the newborn child is born valid, with its own very personal, internal fantasy and emptiness is the effect caused by disappointing relationships.
This research relates physical emptiness and internal hollowness by analysing a series of works of art,trying to deduce from the formal language expressed whether it is possible to have a confirmation of our thesis.
Notes
- 1 https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/horror-vacui/
- 2 https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/arte_res-a5afb9ad-87f0-11dc-8e9d-0016357eee51_%28Enciclopedia-del-Novecento%29/
- 3 Death instinct and knowledge pag. 72
- 4 Isocefalia di Goffredo Bendinelli – Italian Treccani Encyclopaedia
- 5 Omayyadi di O. Grabar – Italian Treccani Encyclopaedia
- 6 Rabirius di G. Lugli – Treccani Ancient Art Encyclopaedia
- 7 History of European civilisation edited by Umberto Eco – Encyclopaedia of Ancient Art Treccani
