Robert Therrien
Untitled (Cloud)
1992
Whitney Museum of American Art
추사 김정희 (秋史 金正喜)
세한도 (歲寒圖)
1844
National Museum of Korea
Two pieces of art;
one from the 20C, the other from the 19C,
one from the West, the other from the East,
both sparse, with plenty of empty space.
Yet, the way the two artists approach empty sapce is a universe apart.
In Robert Therrien's piece, the empty space is loud, intrusive...almost violent.
In 김정희's piece, the empty space is quiet, accepting...almost the main point of the painting.
But why?
I've asked that question many, many times.
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Group 1.
A Baroque interior design (Palazzo Chigi Zondadari in Siena, Italy), exterior facade of the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra), Book of Hours from the late Gothic or early Renaissance period, moderbnMaximalist interior design, The Story of the Vivian Girls by the iconic American outsider artist Henry Darger (1892–1973), Mark Rothko’s Untitled (White and Orange); 1955, Yahoo.com, A KISS concert.
What you may notice is an almost maniacal avoidance of empty space. And even in the one Rothko example, empty space is not truly empty. A background of orange has been violently been covered with a splotch of white.
This is Horror Vacui, a Latin term that means: Fear of empty space (or fear of the void).
The Western Baseline is Fullness: In the Western paradigm (Group 1), space is naturally occupied. Therefore, when a Western modern artist like Therrien or Rothko carves out "empty" space, it feels like an act of subtraction, excision, or erasure. The viewer senses the violence of something being stripped away or withheld.
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Group 2.
묵란도 by 조희룡, 달항아리 an example of Choseon 백자 ceramics, a Japanese Tea room, Ryōan-ji (竜安寺) in Kyoto, 명선 by 추사 김정희, Shōrin-zu byōbu - 松林図 屏風 by Hasegawa Tōhaku (長谷川 等伯), Lee Ufan’s From Line (선으로부터), a lady playing the Gayakeum.
A completely different approach to empty space. Where emptiness is the norm, and things only exist in empty space temporarily.
What we are observing across these two groups is not a mere difference in stylistic preference, but a fundamental divergence in how human consciousness conceptualizes existence. Group 1 betrays a civilization that treats space as a blank ledger requiring a human deposit. Group 2 reveals a worldview that treats space as the primary, sacred fabric from which all things temporarily emerge. When we look closer at these distinct baselines, the psychological disparity between Therrien’s cloud and Chusa’s winter scene becomes entirely logical.
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The West: Space as Vacuum (The "Loud" Void)
In Western thought, space has historically been treated as a physical distance to be conquered, measured, or filled. From Aristotle’s ancient physics asserting that "nature abhors a vacuum" to the Renaissance mastery of linear perspective, Western art traditionally viewed empty space as a deficit waiting for an object to grant it purpose.
When modern and contemporary Western artists—like Robert Therrien, Donald Judd, or Rachel Whiteread—began to intentionally isolate space, the effect became highly charged, precisely because it ran counter to this historic baseline.
The Violent Void: In Western minimalism or conceptualism, empty space is inherently subtractive. It is an act of erasure, leaving a tense, clinical, or confrontational silence.
The Invasive Object: When Robert Therrien scale-shifts everyday objects or isolates a form like Untitled (Cloud), the empty space surrounding it is not a resting place; it is a vacuum under immense atmospheric pressure. It forces the viewer to confront their own physical limitations in a sterile room. The emptiness feels "loud" because it is a deliberate, jarring deprivation—a structural refusal to give the Western mind the content it expects.
The East: Space as Breath (The "Accepting" Void)
In East Asian art, empty space is not the absence of matter; it is a vital, living substance. This is the realm of 여백 (餘白 - Yeobaek) in Korean aesthetics, or Ma (間) in Japanese architecture and performance. This concept is deeply rooted in Taoist and Buddhist metaphysics, where form and emptiness are entirely codependent—as the Heart Sutra states: "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form."
The Generative Void: In Chusa Kim Jeong-hui’s Sehando (歲寒圖), or Jo Hui-ryong's Ink Orchid, the vast, unpainted paper is not a background waiting to be paved over. It is actively generating the landscape, representing the freezing air of winter, the absolute stillness of exile, and the resonance of an single breath.
Space as Context: The empty space in Group 2 is additive in spirit. It allows the brushstrokes to vibrate, much like the silent pause between notes when a lady plays the Gayageum. Without the raw, untouched paper, the sparse, dry ink of Chusa's pine trees would suffocate. The emptiness is accepting because it does not demand total control; it steps back, inviting the viewer's own imagination to inhabit and complete the work. It is peaceful because it treats emptiness as a space of infinite potential, not of lack.
Why, then, does Therrien’s space scream while Kim’s space invites? Because they are haunted by two entirely different ghosts. Therrien’s empty space is a room that has been forcibly emptied; we hear the echoes of the furniture that was dragged out of it. It is an artificial silence constructed by an artist's ego exerting complete control over what is withheld. Kim Jeong-hui’s empty space is a room that was never crowded to begin with. He does not empty his canvas; he simply allows the paper to remain itself. Where the West treats the void as a terrifying vacuum to be conquered, the East treats the void as a quiet home to be inhabited. Therrien forces us to look at the frame; Chusa allows us to breathe.
Is the blank space an empty canvas to fill?
Or is the red dot a temporary visitor to be celebrated?
The mistake is not celebrating the dot. The mistake is believing the dot defeats the canvas.
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