containedness

Updated: April 30, 2025

For instance, in modern representative work ... I think anyone comparing it as a whole with the work of the old masters, will be struck as against their distinctness, containedness, simplicity and serenity; with its complexity, restlessness, and vagueness, and emotion, and suggestiveness in place of delineation, and impressionism in place of literal transcription and this alike in execution and motive.

Randall Davies - Six Centuries of Painting