There is a connection in historical fact between modern art and architecture and social utopianism. It does seem to cut across the grain of my own ideas.
My model for aesthetics was:
Naive thought: yay for pretty things! Let’s gild our paintings and paint our statues!
Sophisticated thought: it’s vulgar/naive to just make things pretty. Often the best things are difficult to appreciate. (The first example I can think of this is the Renaissance tradition of making stone statues and leaving them unpainted.)
There have been various reactions against prettiness. Some Romantic ideas were against prettiness (the sublime vs. the beautiful.) As I understand, Communism was not particularly friendly either to prettiness or to sophisticated formalism. (e.g. composers in the USSR would be condemned for being too atonal, but painters would be condemned if they painted beautiful women in pretty dresses.)
So I don’t know if there’s a consistent relationship between prettiness and politics. I think there’s art that’s both pretty and political (Judy Collins) and art that’s pretty, and very non-political (Matisse). I’m for prettiness, either way.
Finding a small, pleasant, out-of-the way corner for myself sounds very good, actually. Utopia for me and a few other folks would be more than enough. A hobbit-hole is the very definition of nice. I would put that in the “nice” category… and yet spending time thinking about the dangers of idealism is distinctly “anti-nice.” It’s not really a pleasant corner if you spend most of your time hunkered down against foes, is it?
There is a connection in historical fact between modern art and architecture and social utopianism. It does seem to cut across the grain of my own ideas.
Modernism in architecture is fundamentally an expression of utopianism. Constructing buildings, public spaces, and interiors that will be pleasant and attractive for people has been a well understood problem for thousands of years. A modernist, however, sees sticking to this body of well-established knowledge and experience as insufficiently idealistic and sophisticated, and strives for more exalted achievements that he believes his brave novelty will enable—in the most extreme form, even seeing himself as a man of science proudly sweeping away the old superstitions.
Such idealistic hubris, of course, backfires in practice. This is best seen when looking at the artistic sketches of planned modernist projects that show people happily hanging out in the future modernist ambient, and then comparing them with the resulting bleak, despair-inducing, deserted spaces. (It is remarkable how not a single traditional form of architecture from anywhere in the world, to my knowledge, has ever created anything resembling the specifically modernist forms of ugliness and inhumane sterility. It takes the modern utopian thinking to discard common sense to the point where one starts to do such things.)
This example effectively answers your recent question what I have against utopianism. The utopianist ignores the limitations imposed by reality when embarking on his utopian projects, and when this backfires, others also have to live with the consequences. Some people see this clearly in advance, and understandably get nervous and aggravated.
I don’t really know the difference between the various schools of architectural design, but I do know I liked the look and feel of the Rutgers University campus a lot better than I did the Princeton University campus.
Once again, interesting.
There is a connection in historical fact between modern art and architecture and social utopianism. It does seem to cut across the grain of my own ideas.
My model for aesthetics was:
Naive thought: yay for pretty things! Let’s gild our paintings and paint our statues!
Sophisticated thought: it’s vulgar/naive to just make things pretty. Often the best things are difficult to appreciate. (The first example I can think of this is the Renaissance tradition of making stone statues and leaving them unpainted.)
There have been various reactions against prettiness. Some Romantic ideas were against prettiness (the sublime vs. the beautiful.) As I understand, Communism was not particularly friendly either to prettiness or to sophisticated formalism. (e.g. composers in the USSR would be condemned for being too atonal, but painters would be condemned if they painted beautiful women in pretty dresses.)
So I don’t know if there’s a consistent relationship between prettiness and politics. I think there’s art that’s both pretty and political (Judy Collins) and art that’s pretty, and very non-political (Matisse). I’m for prettiness, either way.
Finding a small, pleasant, out-of-the way corner for myself sounds very good, actually. Utopia for me and a few other folks would be more than enough. A hobbit-hole is the very definition of nice. I would put that in the “nice” category… and yet spending time thinking about the dangers of idealism is distinctly “anti-nice.” It’s not really a pleasant corner if you spend most of your time hunkered down against foes, is it?
SarahC:
Modernism in architecture is fundamentally an expression of utopianism. Constructing buildings, public spaces, and interiors that will be pleasant and attractive for people has been a well understood problem for thousands of years. A modernist, however, sees sticking to this body of well-established knowledge and experience as insufficiently idealistic and sophisticated, and strives for more exalted achievements that he believes his brave novelty will enable—in the most extreme form, even seeing himself as a man of science proudly sweeping away the old superstitions.
Such idealistic hubris, of course, backfires in practice. This is best seen when looking at the artistic sketches of planned modernist projects that show people happily hanging out in the future modernist ambient, and then comparing them with the resulting bleak, despair-inducing, deserted spaces. (It is remarkable how not a single traditional form of architecture from anywhere in the world, to my knowledge, has ever created anything resembling the specifically modernist forms of ugliness and inhumane sterility. It takes the modern utopian thinking to discard common sense to the point where one starts to do such things.)
This example effectively answers your recent question what I have against utopianism. The utopianist ignores the limitations imposed by reality when embarking on his utopian projects, and when this backfires, others also have to live with the consequences. Some people see this clearly in advance, and understandably get nervous and aggravated.
I don’t really know the difference between the various schools of architectural design, but I do know I liked the look and feel of the Rutgers University campus a lot better than I did the Princeton University campus.