Ornament: A Modern PerspectiveUniversity 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 |
Dentro del libro
Resultados 1-5 de 71
Página xiv
... style or styles of our own ( there is nothing wrong with having several ) , but the process will be slow and wasteful . Dou- bly so , because taste as well as knowledge can become rusty with disuse . People who have been taught that ...
... style or styles of our own ( there is nothing wrong with having several ) , but the process will be slow and wasteful . Dou- bly so , because taste as well as knowledge can become rusty with disuse . People who have been taught that ...
Página xv
... styles , the Gothic , not to mention my personal favorite , the Mycenean style with its unique blend of harshness and refinement ( a particularly sad omission because so few specimens are on view outside Greece ) . In contrast , the ...
... styles , the Gothic , not to mention my personal favorite , the Mycenean style with its unique blend of harshness and refinement ( a particularly sad omission because so few specimens are on view outside Greece ) . In contrast , the ...
Página xvii
... style and content . The artist expects us to learn a new visual language , and in the process to explore the relation between perception and conception — in effect , to reexperience art from the ground up . Although it has its playful ...
... style and content . The artist expects us to learn a new visual language , and in the process to explore the relation between perception and conception — in effect , to reexperience art from the ground up . Although it has its playful ...
Página 3
... Style is identity . Ornament has always been a powerful tool of ethnic and cul- tural self - definition . Modernism , in contrast , is cosmopolitan . Rejecting the past , it set itself above traditional identities . The widely ...
... Style is identity . Ornament has always been a powerful tool of ethnic and cul- tural self - definition . Modernism , in contrast , is cosmopolitan . Rejecting the past , it set itself above traditional identities . The widely ...
Página 6
... style changed , but because it remained so consistent . As the public became more accepting of bold colors and abbreviated forms , Matisse kept faith with the public as few " revolution- ary " artists have done . Far from discarding his ...
... style changed , but because it remained so consistent . As the public became more accepting of bold colors and abbreviated forms , Matisse kept faith with the public as few " revolution- ary " artists have done . Far from discarding his ...
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 |
259 | |
Términos y frases comunes
abstract Adolf Loos aesthetic animals ANXIETIES OF INDUSTRY architecture Art Nouveau artifice artistic Auguste Comte Author's photo Clarence John Laughlin classical color complex Comte cosmophobia craft Crystal Palace cultural decorative art detail division of labor E. H. Gombrich eclecticism effects eighteenth century ENCHANTMENT ORNAMENT Exhibition FLIGHT FROM ENCHANTMENT function Gothic Gothic Revival Greek Hagia Sophia Henri Matisse history of ornament human idea ikat imitation implies interlace Japanese London look Loos's luxury machine marble Marx materials Matisse means medallion medieval ment modern modernist motifs Museum of Art nature never nineteenth century object original orna Ornament and Crime ORNAMENT Fig painting pattern Pazyryk Pevsner pleasure REBIRTH OF ORNAMENT rejection of ornament religious Revolution rococo Roman Ruskin sense shape shawls social society spontaneity symbol taste technique textile things tion trans transformation twentieth century University Press Vianen Victorian visual Western word worker York