Page 18 - Studio International - September October 1975

moved into that kingdom which has
come to be known as Bohemia.
There were protests. The Pre-
Raphaelites made stained glass and
tapestries for William Morris. Puvis de
Chavannes painted a vast fresco-cycle in
the Paris Pantheon. But they were
exceptions. The view of ornament as a
conventional dressing was welded to a
notion of style. A style was conceived
from about the middle of the century
onwards as a complete and integral
`expression' of an epoch. It was, of
course, most easily characterized by its
surface features, its ornament.
Although various attempts had been
made to devise a repertory of new
ornament for the coming epoch, these
were hampered by the kind of
devaluation I have described. Some of
the more adventurous innovators
conceived an ideal point in time such
as fifteenth-century England or
renaissance Italy to which architects
might return, since it was a point of
fusion; and take original development
beyond it, first having achieved a
satisfactory emulation of the chosen
historical style.
The final attempt to create the total
artistic vesture for the new age lasted
about fifteen years in all. It had various
names: Art Nouveau, Jugendstil,
Stile Liberty and so on. At its height,
one of the most influential architects of
the time wrote : 'there is no doubt that
the point may and shall be reached when
nothing visible will be created without
receiving an artistic baptism.'
It is a good description of tensions.
But, of course, the aim was soon seen to
be unattainable. And this gave rise to the
final triumph of the Polytechnicians in a
destructive attack on all ornament. It was
summarized in the essay on 'Ornament
and Crime' by the Austrian architect,
Adolf Loos, which first appeared in 1908,
the argument of which was insistently
recapitulated through his work. To Loos,
pleasure in architecture is - ultimately -
pleasure of the imagination : but it is the
whole architectural object which must
engage the imagination, having also
satisfied reason, however. For Loos, the
only ornament which is licit is that which
expresses the maker's pleasure : of the
upholsterer (mouldings and brasswork on
furniture), of the nomadic carpet-
weaver (patterns in oriental carpets),
and the shoemaker (brogue shoes).
It is an expression of the maker's
pleasure, not a concession which
indulges the user's eye. True pleasure in
one's surroundings for the civilized man
(the man who listens to Beethoven's
Ninth or to Tristan) is in the smooth
texture of objects designed to perform
their job with least fuss : the saddle, the
smooth silver cigarette-case are examples
obviously liked, as he liked the products
of engineering and industry. They cater
to the pleasures- of reason and of the
senses. Ornament - all art in fact - had
its origin in the obscene, magical scrawl
of the cave-dweller. The art of modern
man is not concerned with the
instinctive needs which were satisfied
by such daubs, but is addressed to the
higher faculties. In so far as architecture
has to do with feeling and imagination, it

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