Because it inherited late
18th Century concepts, the 19th Century, born out of the industrialization
and the changes which issued from it (social, economic, scientific,
and cultural), did not produce a synthesis in any real sense
of combining painting and architecture. Painting and architecture
developed along separate paths, each being affected by modern
achievements. The artist was influenced by new structural principles
and new materials: steel, glass and reinforced concrete. The
painter reacted to discoveries about light and color and to a
new chemical synthesis which produced more luminous pigments.
Although painting and architecture remained separate for most
of the century, the time was valuable as a reappraisal of progress
accomplished in both fields. There was a period for withdrawing
to the easel and the drawing board. Though there was much experimentation
by forward looking designers, a great many artists looked back
too often to the past for inspiration. This aspect, in the first
half of the century, produced a low standard of mural painted.
Only one example stands out among all the rest: Paul Chenavard's
proposed designs for the decoration of the Pantheon in Paris.
(1)
Though the project
never came to rest in its intended setting, it is worthwhile
mentioning for its monumental and ambitious plan. His system
was one of the
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. . . most ambitious
mural plans ever worked out by one man in the entire history
of art, excepting, perhaps, Ghirlandaio's fabled desire to fresco
the walls of Florence . . . . But there is another reason for
remembering him, and that is the fact that he was the only painter
of the century in France who attempted an historical, symbolic
analysis from a peculiar but essentially modern, point of view. (2)
Stylistically they are
not of great importance, painted as they were entirely in grisaille,
and in the hard cold contour of the German fashion. At the time
there was much criticism on these very grounds, but the artist's
defense was that they were to appeal to the mind not the eye,
and furthermore, he felt that the austere grandeur of the Pantheon
would best be complemented by similarly grave paintings which
were, however, to be set in elaborate colored frames. Outside
of their intended setting, as they were when exhibited in the
Salon, they look dull and traditional though several of them
have a truly monumental design. (3) |
Chenavard had planned not
only to incorporate the walls into the painting, but the floor
as well. In every respect the Pantheon plans of Chenavard would
certainly be an improvement over what exists today.
Architects now began designing and executing buildings from the
materials of their age. For the Great London Exhibition of 1851,
Joseph Paxton designed a "Crystal Palace" based on
prefabricated parts. In 1958-68, Henri Labrouste executed his
design for the Bibliotheque Nationale, taking his interior motifs
from Renaissance and antique sources, and applying them to the
surface of the metal structure (i.e., Brunelleschi's Founding
House at Florence, and the Pantheon of Rome.) (4)
This application of design
to architecture seems best described in its surface handling,
when referring to 19th Century building; a feature which will
be considered later in connection with the surface quality of
Art Nouveau interior design. The general concept was toward a
structural emphasis. Standards by which architecture had been
judged in the past, were no longer applicable. The trend was
toward a more open spatial arrangement which, in the 20th Century
has presented the mural painter with less wall space. The Industrial
Exhibition of 1889 in Paris displayed an iron construction spanning
35 meters and rising a distance of 25 meters. Besides displaying
his engineering genius in the "Galerie des Machines,"
Guistave Eiffel erected as well a "tower of iron" to
a height of 1,000 feet, but he was scarcely an architect. These
structures produced great changes in architecture, but it was
obvious by this time that the painter' position, in connection
with the architect, had been filled by the engineer. Outer and
inner space achieved complete inter-penetration. As early as
1867 an article appeared in the "Revue Generale d'Architecture"
by Cesar Daly in which he asks: "is it the fate of architecture
to give way to the art of engineering? Will the architect be
eclipsed by the engineer?" (5) Engineering skill and the nature of its materials
were the chief ingredients of the architect's product. The machine
became another element to master; "Functionalism" became
an important byword. Since the machine was functional, artists
came to regard it as a thing of beauty. This new appreciation
for the mechanical was manifest in the graphic arts and also
in the theater. Recall, for example, certain scenes which employed
the sounds of machines as a part of the performance: Wagner's
"Ring of the Niebelung" called for anvils to be hammered
off stage and Charpentier's opera, "Louise", used the
drone of sewing machines.
Finally, during this interregnum, in which man caught up to the
machine, there came a reaction against the machine and the aesthetic
which regarded it as a thing of beauty. In the early '90s, there
arose a search for a new and independent synthesis of form based
on purely aesthetic values. Its inspiration was derived from
nature, form which it took its motif.
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About the beginning of the
year 1890, a war cry; was issued from one studio to the other.
No more easel painting! Down with these useless objects! Painting
must usurp the freedom which isolates it from the other arts.
. . . Walls, walls to decorate . . . (6) |
Under the name "art
nouveau," this European-born style of decoration reached
its peak at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. The movement produced
the boldest expressionism seen during the last decade of the
19th Century. Horta, working in Brussels, abolished any clear
definition between structural planes by creating a fluid baroque
space, based on plant forms as ornamentation. His aim was a complete
synthesis of parts. "This unity of the arts was most evident
in the comprehensive design of the house. There the wallpaper
design is related to the light fixture and the cutlery, and the
design of the book carefully echoes that of the cabinet." (7) Art Nouveau and other contemporary movements
succeeded as well in reintegrating painting with the general
décor. The emphasis was on the undulating line with an
insistence on creating a two-dimensional painted surface. The
late 19th Century reacting to its sterile and academic heritage
desired radical changes. The Industrial Revolution and the unprecedented
scientific theories of Darwin and Freud broke down barriers of
thought to allow new concepts in all fields, including the world
of art.
The 20th Century
By such milestones as the publishing of Sigmund Freud's Interpretation
of Dreams in 1900, the founding of ethnological museums in Paris,
the painting of "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" by Picasso
in 1907; the stage was set for a modern, polyrhythmic drama,
in which man was presented with new concepts of space and time.
These concepts of the relation between painting and architecture
are clearly stated retrospectively in a "de Stijl"
catalog of 1951.
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In the course of time,
the art of painting has separated itself from architecture, it
has developed itself independently and has - spiritually as well
as regarding form - obtained its own character by experimenting
and destroying naturalness and the old ideas. But nevertheless
it always needs the plane and its final desire will always be
to use the necessary practical plane, which is created by architecture.
More than that, it will - by expanding from individuality to
universality - demand from the building the entire colour-and-form
conception belonging to painting as its rightful domain. If the
architects look out for a painter who will create the demanded
plastic image, then the modern painter also looks out for an
architect, who offers the suitable condition in order to attain
an essential uniformity of plastic arts by joint efforts. We
demand 'self restraint' of the architect, because he has so much
I hand, which actually does not belong to architecture and which
must be represented differently than the architect would do.
Building, to be sure, is something quite different to painting,
it stands in an entirely different relation to infinity. Below
five indications are stated, explaining the difference between
building and painting, i.e., painting, such as it appears in
the last resort.
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1. |
Modern painting is: destruction
of plastic naturalness as contrasted with" construction
of plastic naturalness in architecture. |
|
2. |
Modern painting is: open,
as contrasted with: combinableness and reservedness in architecture. |
|
3. |
Modern painting is:
full of colour and space, as contrasted with: the colourless
flatness of architecture. |
|
4. |
Modern painting is: plasticity
in spatial flatness: extensions, as contrasted with space-limited
flatness of architecture. |
|
5. |
Modern painting is: plastically
well-balanced, as contrasted with architecture, which is constructively
well-balanced (support and weight). (8) |
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The preceding selection
is taken form the text of a 1951 catalogue for a "de Stijl"
retrospective exhibition held in Amsterdam. It conveys clearly
the intentions of that group toward relating painting to architecture.
Founded in Holland, during World War I (1917), "de Stijl"
ideals promulgated a generalized synthesis of the arts. Rising
from the ashes of burned-out theories, "de Stijl" expanded
to embrace a unification of pure painting and architecture. Piet
Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg, the founding forces behind the
movement, simplified cubism and codified the esthetics of its
experimentation, thereby laying down basic canons for painting,
sculpture and architecture. Compositions were based on rectangular
shapes and separation of volumes, interpenetrations of planes,
volumes out of planes, color contrast using the primary pigments
and, in general, right angle construction producing asymmetrical
balance. (9)
"De Stijl" forms were directly translatable into the
functional designs of architecture. A case in point is the transition
from painting, in the style of Mondrian or van Doesburg, into
the architectural composition by G. Rietveld in the Schroder
House at Utrech, 1924. It is strong evidence of direct influence
form abstract painting. The visual pattern rests on a precise
balance of horizontal and vertical elements. The formula of the
painter has been put to a utilitarian practice. The Schroder
House not only describes a painterly transformation but also
has certain sculptural qualities, manifested in the interpenetration
and distribution of rectangular planes and masses. The volume-forming
planes construct a framework of tension producing a mass in a
state of equilibrium. The same is true of the Mondrian painting
in which all proportion, all placement of planes and lines, exist
so tightly in harmony, that to remove one element, or shift it
from its axis, would cause the entire composition to collapse. (10) ( Plates
11A and 11B
)
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Doesburg and Mondrian felt
there was. . . no longer a justification for easel-painting in
its traditional character, either as a illustrative reproduction
of visual experience, or as a decoration. They felt painting
had passed beyond that stage. Easel-painting for Doesburg, as
for Mondrian, was almost exclusively an expression of his philosophical
view of the world in a vocabulary of forms conscientiously reduced
to the strident pictorial essentials - line, color and space
intervals: a concrete analogue of that union of particular and
universal which they saw as constituting the harmony of the universe.
Both Doesburg and Mondrian
looked beyond easel-painting in the sense that they visualized
the total environment of man as a potential work of art once
it could be given the order which they were striving to achieve
on their canvases. For this reason the easel-painting of both
Doesburg and Mondrian must not be looked at in the same way we
regard most pictorial representations, but as microcosmic patterns,
or as models of the artists' larger visions. (11) |
Two years after the birth
of "de Stijl" in Holland, Walter Gropius fathered a
parallel school at Weimar, Germany in 1919, called, the Bauhaus.
It was through one of Gropius's colleagues, American-born Lyonel
Feininger, that the concepts and projects of "de Stijl"
were brought to the Bauhaus. Gropius surrounded himself with
teachers from the field of applied arts.
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However, it should be emphatically
stated that the Bauhaus under Gropius' leadership eventually
went far beyond "de Stijl" by using a primarily functional,
rather than an abstract 'geometrical', system of design. De Stijl
in its use of materials was curiously limited and its insistence
on flat, primary colors was thoroughly doctrinaire. Furthermore,
it was often too much dominated by an abstract painting to permit
a piece of furniture or a building to take a natural form based
upon function, or to be finished with emphasis upon natural surfaces
or textures. (12)
An examination of the works
of other pioneers of modern architecture points to similar conceptions:
Van der Velde, Dudock, and Frank Lloyd Wright have shown in their
works a plasticity and a feeling of artistic unity that we could
seek for in vain in the glass cubes of our contemporary architects,
however functional and technically perfect they may be. The "de
Stijl" movement notably reveals that the founders of modern
architecture had no desire to separate the arts and architecture.
Their movement which was the first to lay down the esthetic principles
of modern architecture, represents also the greatest effort made
towards the integration of the arts since the beginning of the
century.
Neoplasticism is the only
movement of modern times that has created a collective style
and has reinstated architecture in a universal theory of the
arts. The activities of the group were underlined by a close
collaboration between architects, painters, sculptors and plasticians.
. . . In 1923, with the exhibition of the 'de Stijl" group
at the Leance Rosenberg Gallery in Paris, the architects van
Doesburg, Rietual and van Easteran declared: "We have given
color its rightful place in architecture, and we asset that painting
separated from the architectural construction (i.e., the picture)
is without justification. (13) |
Though "de Stijl"
theories were at the height of their acceptance and application
in Paris in 1925 when painting and architecture were at their
closest point of tangency, a reaction set in against the extreme
geometrical austerity of its synthesis. Under the influence of
Leger, Ozenfant and even Le Corbusier, came a gradual return
to more complexity and variety in forms and colors. The desire
for synthesis persisted, but inspiration came from human experience
and motifs renounced the sterility of cubic confines. This growing
fluency, the gradual increase of expressionism among artists,
resulted form the intercession of war and the growth of emotional
stress in the western world. This state of affairs directly opposed
the mechanistic approach to a modern synthesis and once more
painter and architect were separated. Only when the architect
happened to be also a painter did the two merge in a single work.
Nevertheless, there were some sincere attempts to effect a reintegration
of painting and architecture. Most such efforts failed as did
the mural decorations for Rockefeller Center in the 30's, and
more recently, the U.N.E.S.C.O. headquarters in Paris. In connection
with the Rockefeller Center decorations, it is interesting to
note the active discussion generated by Matisse's connection
with the project.
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In 1932 while he was in
the midst of his work on the Barnes decoration, (14) Matisse received an
invitation to undertake another important mural commission. At
the suggestion of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Nelson Rockefeller,
Rockefeller Center, which was then under construction in New
York, asked Matisse, along with Picasso and Diego Rivera, if
he would submit preliminary designs for murals to be installed
in the entrance hall of the huge R.C.A. building, the central
structure of the huge Rockefeller Center group. The invitation
was brought to Matisse by John R. Todd, head of the construction
company and Raymond Hood, one of the architects. They had in
mind that the murals would be painted on canvas in tones of black,
white and gray upon the general theme "New Frontiers - March
of Civilization."
Todd and Hood explained
the scheme of decoration to Matisse but before they could come
to any precise terms the painter made clear that he did not think
he work could be seen to good advantage in such a public place
where bustle and confusion would interfere with the quiet, reflective
state of mind which he felt necessary for the appreciation of
his paintings. Also, he could not promise to complete the mural
within a period of two years. Under the circumstances he did
not feel that he could honestly accept the commission. Picasso
did not accept either and Rivera's mural was ultimately removed.
Murals by Frank Brangwyn and Jose Maria Sert now decorate the
great entrance hall. (15) |
Mr. Barr referred earlier
to the Matisse mural in the Barnes Gallery (Philadelphia, 1933).
Here the painter senses immediately the pattern and rhythms set
up by the architecture. Matisse employs the curving of the lunettes
to emphasize the tumbling sensation of the figure in his Dance
II. His intense awareness that architecture sets up certain statement
of its own which dictate somewhat the partial development of
a mural composition, is revealed by his reaction on being informed
that the previously quoted wall dimensions were slightly off.
Instead of m9odifying the completed drawings, he cast them aside
and reconstructed, at full scale, the architectural design, then
proceeded to rework his ideas completely.
In correspondence with Dorothy Dudley in 1933, Matisse relates
his position and aims concerning the Barnes mural:
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From the floor of the gallery
one will feel it rather than see it, as it gives the sense of
sky, above the green conveyed by the windows. . . It is a room
for paintings: to treat my decoration like another picture would
be out of place. My aim has been to translate paint into architecture,
to make of the fresco the equivalent of stone or cement. This,
I think, is not often done any more. The mural painter today
makes pictures, not murals. |
Apropos of this architectural
preoccupation, Miss Dudley asked Matisse about Puvis de Chauvannes,
who had been largely responsible for the modern theory and practice
of "keeping the wall flat" in mural painting, a departure
from the Renaissance-Baroque tradition of breaking the wall surface
by means of illusionistic perspective and lighting. Puvis had
demonstrated his principles in his flat, pale gray, green and
blue murals in the Pantheon. Matisse answered: "The walls
of the Pantheon . . . are of stone - Puvis' paintings are too
soft in feeling to make the equivalent of that medium. If one
had a diamond, say, one would set it in metal, not in rubber
. . ." In other words, Puvis had not gone far enough.
Matisse broke with tradition in still another way. Except in
Mexico, modern murals were ordinarily designed in small maquettes
or models. These small designs were then squared off and enlarged
more or less mechanically to the full scale. Matisse went about
the Barnes mural in quite a different way, as he explained in
some notes prepared for Raymond Escholier.
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Perhaps it would be
important to make clear that my mural is the result of a physical
encounter between the artist and some fifty-two square meters
of surface of which the spirit of the artist has had to take
possession; it is not the result of the usual modern procedure
of projecting or blowing up a composition more or less mechanically
on a surface so many times bigger by means of tracings.
A man with his searchlight
who follows an airplane in the immensity of the sky does not
traverse space in the same way as an aviator . . . (16) |
In 1948, Matisse gave up
easel painting altogether so that he might concentrate his full
effort toward creating what he considered his "masterpiece
in spite of its imperfections," the Chapel at Vence. (
PLATE
12 )
Matisse is quoted as saying,
"In the Chapel my chief aim was to balance a surface of
light and color against a solid white wall covered with block
drawings." As modest as these endeavors may have seemed
to him, he went much further than the mere balancing of light
and color within a white field. His talents reached out in all
directions, bringing in all elements: material, light, color
painting, sculpture, stained glass, floor and furniture designs,
even spatial interrelation set up by a human figure, to produce
the most structurally and emotionally complete synthesis of modern
times. At Vence, Matisse oriented his plane of work in terms
of the painter, not the architect, in fact, his paintings and
painterly relations dictated the architecture even though August
Perret acted as architectural consultant. By these terms he was
very much akin to Giotto, whose frescoes at Padua he visited
in 1933 shortly after completing the Barnes commission. He even
went so far as to design yellow, green, black, white on black,
and black on pink chasubles to be worn by the clergy for services
in the Chapel. He is the first person in modern times to include
the performer or observer so directly in creating transitional
harmonies. Other than the light and color of the stained glass,
the brightly designed chasubles are the only internal accents
of color. In addition, his scheme included patterns for the floor,
the simple altar, and crucifix and the Chapel furniture and confessional
door. The manner in which he arrived at this synthesis is considered
primarily as painterly application though he also carved the
spire and crucifix. (17)
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Turning from the predominance
of the painterly at Vence, we find an example of unification
in Corbusier's Ronchamp Chapel. ( PLATE13B ) Which accentuates sculptured qualities:
In building this Chapel, I wished to create a place of silence,
of prayer, of peace, of spiritual joy. A sense of the sacred
animated our effort. Some things are sacred, others are not whether
they be religious or not. . . . A few scattered symbols, a few
written words telling the praises of the virgin. The cross -
the true cross of suffering - is raised up in this space; the
drama of Christianity had taken possession of the place form
this time onwards. Excellency, I give you this Chapel of dear,
faithful concrete, shaped perhaps with temerity but certainly
with courage in the hope the it will seek out to you (as in those
who will climb the hill) an echo of what we have drawn into it.
(18) |
The qualities which Le
Corbusier has envisioned in Ronchamp, produce a dynamic plastic
statement, suggesting a possible direction for the modern architect,
painter and sculptor. They are filled with his own stained glass
designs and paintings. The mural on the door of the Chapel (
PLATE
13A ) is very much in keeping with the
design of the overall façade. It is one focal point among
many, but it possesses a different quality altogether - the building
is enriched by such a profusion of rich textures. "Corbu"
incorporates the structural effects imprinted on the concrete
by the wooden forms. He also blasts certain portions with sand
guns and even textural defects seem a purposeful part of the
whole. Light plays over the concrete in broad areas, producing
spatial movement and changing relations between surface.
Narrow incisions of great
penetration, shaft-like in form, pit the concrete bulk of his
wall. The imposition of brilliant color on the rough, greyish
walls, creates such a dynamic contrast that the eye is immediately
directed toward the mural. By making the door the plane of the
mural, its purpose is emphasized. It is a portal to which people
are attracted and through which they pass. Le Corbusier creates
a painterly relationship between linear and planimetric forms,
the divisions of the mural and the scattered dark openings in
the wall (19) in all its aspects, Ronchamp Chapel
is a rare example of a real synthesis of the arts. The designer
has stepped beyond the "mechanized synthesis," for
he has aroused our emotional senses and given a new reaction
to architecture. Corbu also has gone back to lots of wall space.
The works selected in this
brief historical survey were not intended to imply that a "real
synthesis" is only within the scope of an individual skilled
in all three fields of art, but one must remember that such a
synthesis must begin within an individual. He must be trained
in all three arts if he is to grasp the major significance in
relating them one to the other. But to produce a harmonious fusion
is a matter of individual appetite-the desire to express oneself
well in various ways instead of one. In some instances, collective
efforts have been partially successful but they are rare.
A recent example of the
failure of a collective effort can be seen at the U.N.E.S.C.O.
headquarters in Paris (1958). An impressive array of talent was
present, not as a "collective mind" in the true sense
of the term, but as outstanding individuals representing their
countries in the art would. And so the edifice stands as a multiplicity
of individual expression with no apparent relation. How could
so many men be so wrong? The catalogue of the opening refers
to the Headquarters as ". . . a synthesis of 20th Century
artistic and architectural expression." (20)
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The international character
of its construction becomes visible the moment one crosses its
threshold: the floor is of Norwegian quartzite, aluminum panels
have dome form Belgium, lighting equipment was made in the United
States and on the French-made glass doors are teak finger plates
from Burma. (21) |
If it is humanly possible
to create a synthesis out of so much diversity, not only of artists,
architects and materials, but of elements of so many complex
cultures, then, it would indeed be an outstanding utopian solution.
All of the art forms were created away; from the site of the
architecture, and each painter was given an allotted area. One
of the glaring faults in such an arrangement as this is that
the artist is not allowed to develop his painting under the realistic
conditions of the setting, its lighting conditions (which change
continuously) or the proximity of human traffic. (22) The greatest asset for a muralist
is the opportunity to develop his scheme under the particular
conditions of its permanent location. Working anywhere other
than that location, the muralist is unable to see how his compositional
developments relate in scale and meaning to the physical aspects
of the surrounding area. He must know such things as the weight
of the ceiling, the mass of the wall, the shadows of the interior,
etc.
The United States passed
through an interesting encounter with mural decoration during
the period of the Works Progress Administration. This unfortunate
interlude produced the most, and probably the worst, mural painting
in the history of art. In the early '30s the American artist
found himself totally unprepared to accept commissions for projects
mural decoration of Governmental building in every state, but
one morning, it seemed, everyone woke up and became an "Instant
Muralist." Artists pushed aside their easels and went downtown
to paint the Post Office walls. The majority of these painters
could not visualize architectural space or its function. Many
more of them could not read a blueprint. Nor could they grasp
the meaning of transition from easel to wall. The wall, for the
most of them, had been nothing more than a surface upon which
they hung their pictures. I think the answer to why America has
not produced any outstanding muralist is not in the fact that
we have been divorced from architectural painting for a century
or more, but that we were never properly married in the first
place. Our foundations are terribly shaky. Most of the mural
decorations which was executed in the W.P.A. program was done
in a realistic "Academic" manner, and the results were
timidly conventional.
A truly successful "public
mural" requires both the artist and a public. The Art Digest,
September, 1935, prints this statement by Arthur Miller, critic
for the Los Angeles Times. "They forget that public
walls are not he place for the airing of personal beliefs."
This is an interesting point. How much control does the public
have over the muralist? The question will not be further pursued
except to say that perhaps this undecidedness on the part of
the public is one of the reasons why we do not have many murals
around us today.
During the W.P.A. years,
many "muralists " were influenced by the Mexicans.
There were valiant attempts to copy from the Mexican mural school,
but he imitations were only that and could not equal the originals.
The brilliance and richness of color and design were lost by
the neophytes in this country. When, however, a good example
by Diego Rivera appeared in Rockefeller Center, it was soon chipped
form the wall because of its communistic ties.
However, the mural predominates
as a means of artistic expression south of our border, and for
a good reason. The mural lends itself, in scale, to expressing
nationalistic aims. An old expression says, "Murals are
the book of the illiterate."
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"The secret," says
M. Beals, "is Mexico in revolution, in turmoil; tortuously
discovering itself at the cost of brutality and bloodshed and
thwarted ideals." And if we still must speak of Rivera as
"the Giotto of Mexican painting," it should be with
cognizance of the fact that "he has broken the Byzantine
tradition which in Mexico is French - not the French of Manet
and Degas, but of Corot and Rousseau; the seventeenth century
poesistos, the court shin-diggers, the painters of flowers and
fish for the dining rooms." After roaming Europe for fourteen
years, Rivera, as the writer we have been quoting pungently phrases
it, "came back to Mexico and found himself with a bang .
. . .He is planting his feet in the tracks of the pyramid builders."
He belongs to a land whose beginnings are lost in plumes of mystery'
whose gods are more ancient than Cortez." Here "the
first course moves through men more intimately than through the
modern slaves of the machine." Rivera is Mexico. (23) |
With the exhibiting of
Diego Rivera's work in the Museum of Modern Art in 1931, the
artistic concepts of the nation as a whole were caught up by
his statement: "Indian art is the classical art of this
country, the true basis of the American tradition." This
had an influence on the American painters who, with their unprepared
foundation, began to build along a "pseudo-Rivera"
line. Thus ensued the question: what is American art?
We are receiving a lot
of unasked-for advice and criticisms these days. Some tell us
to be Indians, others to be Mexicans, and still others ask us
to look to the various amateur artists of the last few centuries,
who are being brought forward as our "ancestors." We
are not and never have been a primitive people. We are all transplanted
Europeans with centuries of European culture behind us somewhere
. . .
Thomas Donnelly (24) |
Without a doubt some of
the most successful attempts to create a synthesis of painting
and architecture, appear in international exhibitions and fairs.
Certainly the greatest single mural of the century is Picasso's
"Guernica" in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris Exposition
of 1917. None is more timely in execution and theme. At the same
time it is a concentration on space, form, volume and value )the
Guernica is developed in tones of gray). Our own Century of Progress
Exposition of Chicago (1933), the New York World's Fair and the
Golden Gate Centennial (1939-40), allowed the public further
insight into the problem of relating art to architecture. Some
exaggerations caused the murals to devour the architecture, but
others were quite successful. William de Kooning's mural on the
curved façade of the Pharmacy Hall at the New York World's
Fair was one such example. We have come to expect the incorporation
of murals with architecture at such expositions. While some architects
of these buildings are only interested in showy effects, others
actually wish to integrate the two in order to show the public
how exciting a mutual statement can be between artist and architect.
The question is, then,
if the public accepts such a combination under these conditions,
why does it fail to incite similar appreciation in other public
buildings, or in private homes? There are many reasons, four
of which are paramount.
Private incomes are seldom
commensurate with the cost of mural paintings, nor do private
homes generally allow sufficient unbroken wall space for mural
work. We must also consider the fact that good muralists are
in the minority, if for no other reason than a lack of demand
for their services. But above all, the appeal of wall-size painting
in exposition buildings, lies in the very fact that their grandeur
of size is necessary for the grandeur of their subject matter.
A hall of history or "Concourse to the Future: seems well
suited to house themes dedicated to past heroics or future conquests:
it is a place set apart for the business of commemoration or
exciting our hopes for the future.
If the present day architect
persists in creating designs which emphasize structure and function
as an end in themselves, his architecture will cease to be art,
and he will be replaced by the engineer.
Through development of
new materials and engineering techniques, the architect has produced
a more flexible and open structure. Architecture has lost its
weight. The living area is pushed out beyond the construction
of walls, to join the natural world. The architect is conscious
of nature's rich natural forms and plays them against the geometrical
construction of his building.
Great walls of glass and
steel have presented the muralist with competition. The picture
window has replaced the picture, or at least dissolved a large
section of potential mural space. However, the muralist finds
his surface in the form of curtain walls or area dividers. When
he paints on these, he does not have to worry about going too
far and destroying the structure referred to by Mies Van der
Rohe as "skin and bone construction." (25) on such constructions, the muralist may proceed
with ease. He should also remember to gauge correctly the effect
produced between the real and illusionistic space. If he desires
to destroy structural qualities he may, and in so doing give
emphasis to the architect's intention.
This is impossible for
the easel painter who does not need to concern himself with additional
space (one in which he stands and moves about). His spatial interests
lie only within the limits of a two-dimensional canvas. One cannot
stress the point too often, that easel painting cannot be blown-up
into mural painting. The muralist must think in terms, both painterly
and architecturally, of space, mass, volume, proportion, color
and structure.
More than likely, if a
synthesis of the arts is evolved )painting and architecture in
particular), it will be reached though the channels of the mural
painter. Unlike the architect, who has been trained in the rational
and structural, the painter has been trained in the emotional
and aesthetic. If a synthesis does evolve it will be from emotional
needs, not rational or structural. Again, with emphasis, a synthesis
begins within the person- the problem lies in how to educate
artists, architects and, above all, the public. The designers
must be capable of producing a synthesis which is so honest,
so convincing and so unalterably attractive that the public will
be forever dissatisfied with the jumbled, patched, mismated,
halfhearted efforts they were suckled on.
Painters have brought
about a great revolution. They have arrived at non-objective
painting. They have discovered new elements which henceforth
will determine the problems of future architecture.
Malevitch (26)
The future certainly
cries out for the collaboration of the three major art forms
- architecture, painting, sculpture.
Fenand Leger (27)
Architecture, sculpture
and painting - the march of time and events unquestionable leads
them toward a synthesis.
Le Corbusier (28)
The fragmentation will
be slowly replaced by integration. "either or" must
be replaced by "both together".
Wassily Kandinsky (29)
Contacts between planner
and artist are as important for future development as air conditioning.
Sigfried Giedion (30)
Now it is much easier
to forward the most difficult scientific theory than the simplest
of new artistic means. The education of the individual is today
directed toward intellectual specialization. In contrast to this,
the education of the emotion is neglected. At any rate, its level
does not correspond to the level of knowledge which is to be
mastered. Thinking is trained; feeling is left untrained.
Mentally trained people
are capable today of following the most difficult scientific
research, but the same people are lost when they are faced with
new artistic means which force them to an enlargement of their
inner natures. So we arrive at the curious paradox that in our
period feeling has become more difficult than thinking.
Sigfried Giedion (31)
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