Showing posts with label ornament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ornament. Show all posts
Amiens Cathedral to Office Building Morph
To study the effect of detail, ornament, filigree and form.
Cicero on the Attic style of oratory, purism, decorum, appropriateness
(Gombrich)
"there is such a thing as a careful negligence"
"there is such a thing as a careful negligence"
"It wouldn't hurt them, sir"
(E.H. Gombrich)
On Dickens: "As a writer of fiction he resented what he took to be an inability to distinguish between fiction and fact."
On Dickens: "As a writer of fiction he resented what he took to be an inability to distinguish between fiction and fact."
Wrapping paper vs architecture
There is a confounding of roles.
A wrapping paper designer could also design the box, and vice versa, but the two roles should not be confounded. The former is primarily about affect, about pattern, fundamentally 2-dimensional, could be complex but the complexity is never spatial; the latter is about space and spatial experience.
In an analogy, designing the fabric pattern is not the same as designing the dress with its 3-d proportions.
They could both be excellent, but the fabric has no use were it not for the dress - which one is more important? Will you buy a dress designed by (insert-famous-name) made out of an anonymous, run-of-the-mill fabric or will you buy a dress designed by an anonymous, run-of-the-mill fashion designer made out of (insert-famous-name) fabric? Granted one should see the dress before deciding, but we would think the exceptional fashion designer will handle the ordinary fabric so well that the dress will be exceptional while the exceptional fabric is wasted in the hands of a mediocre dress designer.
Today, there are so many wrapped boxes that one thinks the wrapper is more important. It is for the first five seconds or ten months... and then?
A wrapping paper designer could also design the box, and vice versa, but the two roles should not be confounded. The former is primarily about affect, about pattern, fundamentally 2-dimensional, could be complex but the complexity is never spatial; the latter is about space and spatial experience.
In an analogy, designing the fabric pattern is not the same as designing the dress with its 3-d proportions.
They could both be excellent, but the fabric has no use were it not for the dress - which one is more important? Will you buy a dress designed by (insert-famous-name) made out of an anonymous, run-of-the-mill fabric or will you buy a dress designed by an anonymous, run-of-the-mill fashion designer made out of (insert-famous-name) fabric? Granted one should see the dress before deciding, but we would think the exceptional fashion designer will handle the ordinary fabric so well that the dress will be exceptional while the exceptional fabric is wasted in the hands of a mediocre dress designer.
Today, there are so many wrapped boxes that one thinks the wrapper is more important. It is for the first five seconds or ten months... and then?
When we look at some great fabric
(Le Camus)
"One sensation induces quiet reflection; another inspires awe, or maintains respect, and so on." That a flower charms the eye: how does this relate to the argument that ornament is or has to be symbolic? What is a flower a symbol of?
"One sensation induces quiet reflection; another inspires awe, or maintains respect, and so on." That a flower charms the eye: how does this relate to the argument that ornament is or has to be symbolic? What is a flower a symbol of?
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