Visually Spare?

In reading the A.V. Club article "Primer: Pixar" I was confounded by the term "visually spare" in Donna Bowman's and Noel Murray's description of Finding Nemo. Having the utmost respect for these two writers and their opinions, I must respectfully disagree with their assessment. The colors pop, the scenery is dense, the effects are gorgeous, and the character models ooze detail. Granted, there are stretches where there isn't much to see, but the characters are in the ocean - sometimes there' s gonna be some dead space. And even in those scenes there's always something happening; debris wafting by, subtle reflections or beams of light penetrating the deep, and so forth. Visually spare... ha.

In all fairness, perhaps our definitions differ. I consider the visual upgrade from Monsters, Inc. to Finding Nemo to be the most substantial in Pixar's filmography, acknowledging that with each successive release their movies look better and better. So while Ratatouille may be the, to use my term, most lavish animated film ever, that title is probably going to be WALL-E's today when I see it. I don't know, it's still #10 all-time and my #2 Pixar.