Page 23 - Studio International - February 1965

All illistrations in the Andre Bloc
article are of works
by Andre Bloc
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task of the master-spirit by bringing their sense of the
disciplines relevant to the plastic arts to bear on the
study of countless details.

You have often attempted to reply to a constantly
recurring question, that of the integration of the plastic
arts, or rather the relationship between the so-called
major arts: architecture, sculpture and painting. What
do you think of the various experiments that have been
tried in the last decade?
For a long time I have entertained certain illusions on
the organization of relations between artists. architects
and urban planners; my belief has been that the addition
of paintings or sculptures could prove to be an enrich­
ment of the architect's work. The obstacles which I have
encountered are the following:
In most cases. artists are ill-prepared to resolve prob­
lems other than those to which they are accustomed:
'Paintings as objects' and 'Sculptures as objects.' They
find it difficult to help architects in any effective way, if
they are not precisely willing to learn and to acquire a
minimum knowledge of a field which. until now, has
been foreign to them.
Architects too often tend to treat artists as secondary
individuals. collaboration with whom they are inGiined
to think costly without being indispensable. Only in a
few cases have they any idea of the relative value of
painters and sculptors, and, above all, the architectural
projects under consideration are often too mediocre to
justify the addition of mosaics, stained glass. frescoes and
sculptured elements. The matter of first importance is
the existence of architecture of quality. rather than the
addition, to work of the existing quality, of elements
which often lack any real associative value.
Nevertheless, it would be unjust to make my criticism
universally applicable. Some successful experiments in
exhibitions, in public buildings and recently also in
ordinary dwelling houses. are pleasing examples of this
much-talked-of synthesis of the arts-a process often
sought for, though rarely achieved. ■
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