Ornament: A Modern Perspective

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University of Washington Press, 2003 - 265 páginas
Ornament - "the art we add to art," as James Trilling defines it - makes people happy; it stands for everything that makes life worth living. But ornament was effectively banned from our world almost a century ago, with modernism's doctrine that ornament was a betrayal of the beauty of function. Devotion to modernism stripped away our historical awareness of ornament and broke the tradition of craft that once kept ornament alive. Now that modernism is itself receding into history, ornament is again acceptable, but moving forward seems to mean reinventing the wheel. "Not since the artists and connoisseurs of fifteenth-century Italy set out to rediscover classical antiquity has a culture been so completely on its own in relation to the past," Trilling writes. This engaging, generously illustrated book - part visual guide, part cultural history - is a wide-ranging consideration of the cultural and symbolic significance of ornament, its rejection by modernism, and its subsequent reinvention. Trilling explains how ornament works, why it has to be explained, and why it matters. His discussion of ornament - in textiles, ceramics, metalwork, architecture, manuscripts, and books - is enhanced by insights drawn from religion, science, ancient and modern literature, political history, and moral philosophy. The result is a resoundingly original, highly readable contribution to art history and, more broadly, to cultural and social history. James Trilling is a writer and art historian. He is former associate curator of Old World textiles at The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C., and has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island

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Contenido

WHAT IS ORNAMENT?
19
How Ornament Works
21
How Ornament Evolves
47
From Function to Meaning In Search of Universals
71
Ornament Meaning Symbol In Search of Specifics
91
MODERNISM AND THE REJECTION OF ORNAMENT
113
Preface to Part II
115
The Revolution That Never Happened
119
The Flight From Enchantment Moral and Religious Objections to Ornament
137
Anxieties of Industry Social and Economic Objections to the Ornament
169
Modernism and the Rebirth of Ornament
201
Epilogue
227
Notes
233
Bibliography of Ornament
255
Index
259
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James Trilling is a writer, art historian, and author of The Language of Ornament. He is former associate curator of Old World textiles at the Textile Museum, Washington, D.C., and has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

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