Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

APPROACHES - In The Words Of . . . .

From: Ferrier, Jean-Louis, Director and Yann le Pichon, Walter D. Glanze [English Translation]. Art of Our Century, The Chronicle of Western Art, 1900 to the Present. New York: Prentice-Hall Editions. 1988.

Walter Gropius


Apollo in a Democracy
1956 - Writings and Theories

Over a long period of time, I came to realize that creation and love of beauty not only enrichman by grantng him a large measure of happiness, but also make his ethical faculties evolve.

An age in which such a sentiment is not given much priority remains underdeveloped in a visual sense. Its perception remains imprecise, and its individual artistic manifestations have such a weak effect as to give almost no indication of any overall evolution.

Man is born with two eyes but needs an extended period of education in order to learn to see. Intense observation and a sharpened inner vision syrengthen the imagination so as to enable him to create original forms and, by successive elimination, arrive at criteria of artistic values. Today's bookish system of education is obstructing the development of sensory perception and of a sense of beauty. There is a wide gap between the public and the creative artist, whose intrinsic value is misunderstood and underestimated as if he were a luxury item that society could do without.

The triumphant and unprecedneted march of the exact sciences has chased away all magic in our life. The poet and the prophet have become the pauperized parents of positive-minded, materialisitic man who, dazzled by the success of a mechanized civilization, breaks away from them. Einstein spoke forcefully of the consequences of this one-sided evolution, saying that "our age is characterized by perfected tools but imprecise goals." Tolstoy, before him, had foreseen this cultural dilemma. He accused sicence of deliberately tryng to study "everything"; by moving in hu ndreds of directions at once, we would completely scatter ourselves, rather than choosing with precision what was closest to our heart and making it the target of our highest aspirations. Tolstoy's exhortation can undeniably be seen as an appeal in favor of a system of cultural values. Thus far, we have been unable to agree on such a system.

Walter Gropius, Speech on receiving the Goethepreis

[An Exerpt From: Ferrier, Jean-Louis, Director and Yann le Pichon, Walter D. Glanze [English Translation]. Art of Our Century, The Chronicle of Western Art, 1900 to the Present. New York: Prentice-Hall Editions. 1988. p. 535]




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