iva the modern as ideal - · pdf fileiva the modern as ideal 1 walter gropius (1883-1969)...

IVA

The Modern as Ideal

1 Walter Gropius (1883-1969) 'The Theory andOrganization of the Bauhaus'

The author was the founder and first Director of the Bauhaus, established in Weimar in1919. The reputation of the Bauhaus rests largely on its early promulgation of integratedmodern design principles with a view to their industrial implementation. The institution'sorigins, however, were in the confused conditions of the end of a world war, the eruptionand failure of a revolution, and the establishment of bourgeois democracy in the WeimarRepublic. Accordingly a utopianism inseparable from this moment coexists in tensionwith a more orthodox technological and rationalistic element, particularly in earlyBauhaus pronouncements. Originally published as Idee und Aufbau des StaatlichenBauhaus Weimar by the Bauhaus Press (Bauhausvertag), Munich, 1923. The presentextracts are taken from the translation in Herbert Bayer, Walter Gropius and Ise Gropius(eds.), Bauhaus 1919-1928, New York (Museum of Modern Art), 1938.

The dominant spirit of our epoch is already recognizable although its form isnot yet clearly defined. The old dualistic world-concept which envisaged theego in opposition to the universe is rapidly losing ground. In its place is risingthe idea of a universal unity in which all opposing forces exist in a state ofabsolute balance. This dawning recognition of the essential oneness of all thingsand their appearances endows creative effort with a fundamental inner meaning.No longer can anything exist in isolation. We perceive every form as theembodiment of an idea, every piece of work as a manifestation of our innermostselves. Only work which is the product of inner compulsion can have spiritualmeaning. Mechanized work is lifeless, proper only to the lifeless machine. Solong, however, as machine-economy remains an end in itself rather than a meansof freeing the intellect from the burden of mechanical labor, the individual willremain enslaved and society will remain disordered. The solution depends on achange in the individual's attitude toward his work, not on the betterment ofhis outward circumstances, and the acceptance of this new principle is of decisi veimportance for new creative work.

IVA The Modern as Ideal 339

The 'academy'

The tool of the spirit of yesterday was the 'academy.' It shut off the artist fromthe world of industry and handicraft, and thus brought about his completeisolation from the community. In vital epochs, on the other hand, the artistenriched all the arts and crafts of a community because he had a part in itsvocational life, and because he acquired through actual practice as muchadeptness and understanding as any other worker who began at the bottom andworked his way up. But lately the artist has been misled by the fatal and arrogantfallacy, fostered by the state, that art is a profession which can be mastered bystudy. Schooling alone can never produce art! Whether the finished product isan exercise in ingenuity or a work of art depends on the talent of the individualwho creates it. This quality cannot be taught and cannot be learned. On theother hand, manual dexterity and the thorough knowledge which is a necessaryfoundation for all creative effort, whether the workman's or the artist's, can betaught and learned.

Isolation of the artist

Academic training, however, brought about the development of a great art-prole-tariat destined to social misery. For this art-proletariat, lulled into a dream ofgenius and enmeshed in artistic conceit, was being prepared for the 'profession'of architecture, painting, sculpture or graphic art, without being given theequipment of a real education - which alone could have assured it of economicand esthetic independence. Its abilities, in the final analysis, were confined toa sort of drawing-painting that had no relation to the realities of materials,techniques or economics. Lack of all vital connection with the life of thecommunity led inevitably to barren esthetic speculation. The fundamentalpedagogic mistake of the academy arose from its preoccupation with the ideaof the individual genius and its discounting the value of commendable achieve-ment on a less exalted level. Since the academy trained a myriad of minor talentsin drawing and painting, of whom scarcely one in a thousand became a genuinearchitect or painter, the great mass of these individuals, fed upon false hopesand trained as one-sided academicians, was condemned to a life of fruitlessartistic activity. Unequipped to function successfully in the struggle for exist-ence, they found themsel ves numbered among the social drones, useless, byYirtue of their schooling, in the productive life of the nation.: With the development of the academies genuine folk art died away. Whatremained was a drawing-room art detached from life. In the 19th century thisdwindled to the production of individual paintings totally divorced from anyrelation to an architectural entity. The second half of the 19th century saw thebeginning of a protest against the devitalizing influence of the academies. Ruskinand Morris in England, van de Velde in Belgium, Olbrich, Behrens and othersin Germany, and, finally, the Deutsche Werkbund, all sought, and in the enddiscovered, the basis of a reunion between creative artists and the industrialWorld. In Germany, arts and crafts (Kunstgewerbe) schools were founded for

340 Freedom, Responsibility and Power

the purpose of developing, in a new generation, talented individuals trained inindustry and handicraft. But the academy was too firmly established: practicaltraining never advanced beyond dilettantism, and draughted and rendered'design' remained in the foreground. The foundations of this attempt were laidneither wide enough nor deep enough to avail much against the old l'art pourl'art attitude, so alien to, and so far removed from life. [ . .. J

Analysis of the designing processThe objective of all creative effort in the visual arts is to give form to space .. . . But what is space, how can it be understood and given a form?

. . . Although we may achieve an awareness of the infinite we can give formto space only with finite means. We become aware of space through ourundivided Ego, through the simultaneous activity of soul, mind and body. Alike concentration of all our forces is necessary to give it form. Through hisintuition, through his metaphysical powers, man discovers the immaterial spaceof inward vision and inspiration. This conception of space demands realizationin the material world, a realization which is accomplished by the brain and thehands.

The brain conceives of mathematical space in terms of numbers and dimensions .. . . The hand masters matter through the crafts, and with the help of tools andmachinery.

Conception and visualization are always simultaneous. Only the individual'scapacity to feel, to know and to execute varies in degree and in speed. Truecreative work can be done only by the man whose knowledge and mastery ofthe physical laws of statics, dynamics, optics, acoustics equip him to give lifeand shape to his inner vision. In a work of art the laws of the physical world,the intellectual world and the world of the spirit function and are expressedsimultaneously.

The Bauhaus at Weimar

Every factor that must be considered in an educational system which is toproduce actively creative human beings is implicit in such an analysis of thecreative process. At the 'State Bauhaus at Weimar' the attempt was made forthe first time to incorporate all these factors in a consistent program.

[ ... J The theoretical curriculum of an art academy combined with thepractical curriculum of an arts and crafts school was to constitute the basis ofa comprehensive system for gifted students. Its credo was: 'The Bauhaus strivesto coordinate all creative effort, to achieve, in a new architecture, the unificationof all training in art and design. The ultimate, if distant, goal of the Bauhaus isthe collective toor]: of art - the Building - in which no barriers exist betweenthe structural and the decorative arts.

The guiding principle of the Bauhaus was therefore the idea of creating anew unity through the welding together of many 'arts' and movements: a unityhaving its basis in Man himself and significant only as a living organism.


Human achievement depends on the proper coordination of all the creativefaculties. It is not enough to school one or another of them separately: theymust all be thoroughly trained at the same time. The character and scope ofthe Bauhaus teachings derive from the realization of this.

The Curriculum

The course of instruction at the Bauhaus IS divided into:

The Preliminary Course (Vorlehre)

Practical and theoretical studies are carried on simultaneously in order to releasethe creative powers of the student, to help him grasp the physical nature ofmaterials and the basic laws of design. Concentration on any particular stylisticmovement is studiously avoided. Observation and representation - with theintention of showing the desired identity of Form and Content - define thelimits of the preliminary course. Its chief function is to liberate the individualby breaking down conventional patterns of thought in order to make way forpersonal experiences and discoveries which will enable him to see his ownpotentialities and limitations. For this reason collective work is not essential inthe preliminary course. Both subjective and objective observation will be culti-vated: both the system of abstract laws and the interpretation of objective matter.

Above all else, the discovery and proper valuation of the individual's meansof expression shall be sought out. The creative possibilities of individuals vary.One finds his elementary expressions in rhythm, another in light and shade, athird in color, a fourth in materials, a fifth in sound, a sixth in proportion, aseventh in volumes or abstract space, an eighth in the relations between oneand another, or between the two to a third or fourth.

All the work produced in the preliminary course is done under the influenceof instructors. It possesses artistic quality only in so far as any direct andlogically developed expression of an individual which serves to lay the founda-tions of creative discipline can be called art.

Instruction In form problems

Intellectual education runs parallel to manual traimng. The apprentice is ac-quainted with his future stock-in-trade - the elements of form and color andthe laws to which they are subject. Instead of studying the arbitrary individ-ualistic and stylized formulae current at the academies, he is given the mentalequipment with which to shape his own ideas of form. This training opens the'Nay for the creative powers of the individual, establishing a basis on whichdifferent individuals can cooperate without losing their artistic independence.Collective architectural work becomes possible only when every individual,


prepared by proper schooling, is capable of understanding the idea of the whole,and thus has the means harmoniously to coordinate his independent, even iflimited, activity with the collective work. Instruction in the theory of form iscarried on in close contact with manual training. Drawing and planning, thuslosing their purely academic character, gain new significance as auxiliary meansof expression. We must know both vocabulary and grammar in order to speaka language; only then can we communicate our thoughts . Man, who creates andconstructs, must learn the specific language of construction in order to makeothers understand his idea. Its vocabulary consists of the elements of form andcolor and their structural laws. The mind must know them and control the hand

if a creative idea is to be made visible. The musician who wants to make audible

a musical idea needs for its rendering not only a musical instrument but also aknowledge of theory. Without this knowledge, his idea will never emerge fromchaos.

A corresponding knowledge of theory - which existed in a more vigorous era- must again be established as a basis for practice in the visual arts. Theacademies, whose task it might have been to cultivate and develop such a theory,completely failed to do so, having lost contact with reality. Theory is not arecipe for the manufacturing of works of art, but the most essential element ofcollective construction; it provides the common basis on which many individualsare able to create together a superior unit of work; theory is not the achievementof individuals but of generations.

The Bauhaus is consciously formulating a new coordination of the means ofconstruction and expression. Without this, its ultimate aim would be impossible.For collaboration in a group is not to be obtained solely by correlating theabilities and talents of various individuals. Only an apparent unity can beachieved if many helpers carry out the designs of a single person. In fact, theindividual's labor within the group should exist as his own independent accom-plishment. Real unity can be achieved only by coherent restatement of the formaltheme, by repetition of its integral proportions in all parts of the work. Thuseveryone engaged in the work must understand the meaning and origin of theprincipal theme.

Forms and colors gain meaning only as they are related to our inner selv-es .Used separately or in relation to one another they are the means of expressingdifferent emotions and movements: they have no importance of their own. Red,for instance, evokes in us other emotions than does blue or yellow; round formsspeak differently to us than do pointed or jagged forms. The elements whichconstitute the 'grammar' of creation are its rules of rhythm, of proportion, oflight values and full or empty space. Vocabulary and grammar can be learned,but the most important factor of all, the organic life of the created work,originates in the creative powers of the individual.

The practical training which accompanies the studies in form is founded asmuch on observation, on the exact representation or reproduction of nature, asit is on the creation of individual compositions. These two activities areprofoundly different. The academies ceased to discriminate between them,confusing nature and art - though by their very origin they are antithetical. Art


wants to triumph over Nature and to resolve the opposition in a new unity,'and this process is consummated in the fight of the spirit against the materialworld. The spirit creates for itself a new life other than the life of nature.

Each of these departments in the course on the theory of form functions inclose association with the workshops, an association which prevents theirwandering off into academicism.

The goal of the Bauhaus curriculum

. .. the culminating point of the Bauhaus teaching is a demand for a new andpowerful working correlation of all the processes of creation. The gifted studentmust regain a feeling for the interwoven strands of practical and formal work.The joy of building, in the broadest meaning of that word, must replace thepaper work of design. Architecture unites in a collective task all creative workers,from the simple artisan to the supreme artist.

For this reason, the basis of collective education must be sufficiently broadto permit the development of every kind of talent. Since a universally applicablemethod for the discovery of talent does not exist, the individual in the courseof his development must find for himself the field of activity best suited to himwithin the circle of the community. The majority become interested in produc-tion; the few extraordinarily gifted ones will suffer no limits to their activity.After they have completed the course of practical and formal instruction, theyundertake independent research and experiment.

Modern painting, breaking through old conventions, has released countlesssuggestions which are still waiting to be used by the practical world. But when,in the future, artists who sense new creative values have had practical trainingin the industrial world, they will themselves possess the means for realizingthose values immediately. They will compel industry to serve their idea andindustry will seek out and utilize their comprehensive training.

2 Paul Klee (1879-1940) from On Modern Art

Swiss by birth, Klee spent most of his working life in Germany, latterly at the Bauhaus,~ntil forced into exile by the victory of the Nazis in 1933. For much of this time he wasInvolved in a creative dialogue with Kandinsky. 'On Modern Art' was first delivered as alecture to the Jena Kunstverein in 1924. It was first published, as Paul Klee: Uber diemoderne Kunst, by the Verlag Benteli, Bern-Bumpliz, in 1945. The present extracts aretaken from the translation by Paul Findlay in Herbert Read (intro.l, Paul Klee: On ModernArt, London, 1948,

May I use a simile, the simile of the tree? The artist has studied this world ofvariety and has, we may suppose, unobtrusively found his way in it. His senseof direction has brought order into the passing stream of image and experience.


This sense of direction in nature and life, this branching and spr eadin g array,I shall compare with the root of the tree.

From the root the sap flows to the artist, flows through him, flow s to his eye .Thus he stands as the trunk of the tree.

Battered and stirred by the strength of the flow , he molds his vision into hiswork .

As, in full view of the world, th e crown of the tree unfolds and spreads in timeand in space, so with his work .

Nobody would affirm that the tree grows its crown in the image of its root.Between above and below can be no mirrored reflection. It is ob vious that

different functions expanding in different elements must produce vi tal di ver-gence s .

But it is just the artist who at times is denied those departures from naturewhich his art demands. He has even been charged with incompetence anddeliberate distortion.

And yet, standing at his appointed place, the trunk of the tre e, he does nothingother than gather and pass on what comes to him from the depths. He neitherserves nor rules - he transmits.

His position is humble. And the beauty at the crown is not his own . He ISmerely a channel.

The creation of a work of art - the growth of the crown of the tree - must ofnecessity, as a result of entering into the specific dimensions of pictorial art,be accompanied b y distortion of the natural form. For, therein is nature reborn .

What, then, are these specific dimensions?

First, there are the more or less limited, formal factors, such as lin e, tone value,and color.

Of these, line is the most limited, being solely a matter of simple Measure. Itsproperties are length (long or short ), angles (obtuse or acute), length of radiusand focal distance. All are quantities subject to measurement.

Measure is the characteristic of this element. Where the possibility of measure-ment is in doubt, line cannot have been handled with absolute purity.

Of a quite different nature is tone value, or, as it is also called, chiaroscuro -the many degrees of shading between black and white. This second element canbe characterized by Weight. One stage may be more or less rich in white energy,another more or less weighted toward the black. The various stages can beweighed against one another. Further, the blacks can be related to a white norm(on a white background) and the whites to a black norm (on a blackboard) . Orboth together can be referred to a medium grey norm.


Thirdly, color, which clearly has quite different characteristics. For it can beneither weighed nor measured. Neither with scales nor with ruler can anydifference be detected between two surfaces, one a pure yellow and the othera pure red, of similar area and similar brilliance. And yet, an essential differenceremains, which we, in words, label yellow and red.

In the same way, salt and sugar can be compared, in their saltiness andsweetness.

Hence, color may be defined as Quality.

We now have three formal means at our disposal - Measure, Weight, and Quality,which in spite of fundamental differences, have a definite interrelationship.

The form of this relationship will be shown by the following short analysis.

Color is primarily Quality. Secondly, it is also Weight, for it has not only colorvalue but also brilliance. Thirdly, it is Measure, for besides Quality and Weight,it has its limits, its area, and its extent, all of which may be measured.

Tone value is primarily Weight, but in its extent and its boundaries, it is alsoMeasure.

Line, however, is solely Measure.

Thus, we have found three quantities which all intersect in the region of purecolor, two only in the region of pure contrast, and only one extends to theregion of pure line.

These three quantities impart character, each according to its individual con-tribution - three interlocked compartments. The largest compartment containsthree quantities, the medium two, and the smallest only one. [ . .. ]

This shows a remarkable intermixture of our quantities and it is only logicalthat the same high order should be shown in the clarity with which they areused. It is possible to produce quite enough combinations as it is.

Vagueness in one's work is therefore only permissible when there is a real innerneed. A need which could explain the use of colored or very pale lines, or theapplication of further vagueness such as the shades of grey ranging from yellowto blue.

Leaving this subject of formal elements I now come to the first constructionUsing the three categories of elements which have just been enumerated.This is the climax of our conscious creative effort.This is the essence of our craft.This is critical.

From this point, given mastery of the medium, the structure can be assuredfoundations of such strength that it is able to reach out into dimensions farremoved from conscious endeavor.


This phase of formation has the same critical importance in the negative sense.It is the point where one can miss the greatest and most important aspects ofcontent and thus fail, although possibly possessing the most exquisite talent.For one may simply lose one's bearings on the formal plane. Speaking from mvown experience, it depends on the mood of the artist at the time which of th~many elements are brought out of their general order, out of their appointedarray, to be raised together to a new order and form an image which is normallycalled the subject.

This choice of formal elements and the form of their mutual relationship is,within narrow limits, analogous to the idea of motif and theme in musicalthought.

With the gradual growth of such an image before the eyes an aSSOCIatIOn ofideas gradually insinuates itself which may tempt one to a material interpreta-tion. For any image of complex structure can, with some effort of imagination,be compared with familiar pictures from nature.

These associative properties of the structure, once exposed and labelled, nolonger correspond wholly to the direct will of the artist (at least not to his mostintensive will) and just these associative properties have been the source ofpassionate misunderstandings between artist and layman.

While the artist is still exerting all his efforts to group the formal elementspurely and logically so that each in its place is right and none clashes with theother, a layman, watching from behind, pronounces the devastating words 'Butthat isn't a bit like uncle.'

The artist, if his nerve is disciplined, thinks to himself, 'To hell with uncle! Imust get on with my building.. " This new brick is a little too heavy and tomy mind puts too much weight on the left; I must add a good-sized counter-weight on the right to restore the equilibrium.'

And he adds this side and that until finally the scales show a balance.

And he is relieved if, in the end, the shaking which he has perforce had to givehis original pure structure of good elements, has only gone so far as to providethat opposition which exists as contrast in a living picture.

But sooner or later, the association of ideas may of itself occur to him, withoutthe intervention of a layman. Nothing need then prevent him from acceptingit, provided that it introduces itself under its proper title.

Acceptance of this material association may suggest additions which, once thesubject is formulated, clearly stand in essential relationship to it. If the artistis fortunate, these natural forms may fit into a slight gap in the formalcomposition, as though they had always belonged there.

The argument is therefore concerned less with the question of the existence ofan object, than with its appearance at any given moment - with its nature.


I only hope that the layman who, in a picture, always looks for his favoritesubject, will, as far as I am concerned, gradually die out and remain to menothing but a ghost which cannot help its failings. [ . . . ]

Certain proportions of line, the combination of certain tones from the scale oftone values, certain harmonies of color, carry with them at the time quitedistinctive and outstanding modes of expression.

The linear proportions can, for example, refer to angles: movements which areangular and zigzag - as opposed to smooth and horizontal - strike resonancesof expression which are similarly contrasting.

In the same way a conception of contrast can be given by two forms of linearconstruction, the one consisting of a firmly join ted structure and the other oflines loosely scattered.

Contrasting modes of expression in the region of tone value are given by:

The wide use of all tones from black to white, implying full-bodied strength.

Or the limited use of the upper light half or the lower dark half of the scale.

Or medium shades around the grey which imply weakness through too muchor too little light.

Or timid shadows from the middle. These, again, show great contrasts Inmeaning.

And what tremendous possibilities for the variation of meaning are offered bythe combination of colors.

Color as tone value: e.g . red in red, i.e. the entire range from a deficiency toan excess of red, either widely extended, or limited in range. Then the samein yellow (something quite different). The same in blue - what contrasts!

Or colors diametrically opposed - i .e. changes from red to green, from yellowto purple, from blue to orange.

Tremendous fragments of meaning.

Or changes of color in the direction of chords, not touching the grey center,but meeting in a region of warmer or cooler grey.

What subtleties of shading compared with the former contrasts.

Or: color changes in the direction of arcs of the circle, from yellow through orangeto red or from red through violet to blue, or far flung over the whole circumference.

What tremendous variations from the smallest shading to the glowing symphonyof color. What perspectives in the dimension of meaning!

Or finally, journeys through the whole field of color, including the grey center,and even touching the scale from black to white.


Only on a new dimension can one go beyond these last possibilities. We couldnow consider what is the proper place for the assorted colors, for each assortmentclearly possesses its possibilities of combination.

And each formation, each combination will have its own particular constructiveexpression, each figure its face - its features.

I would like now to examine the dimensions of the object in a new light andso try to show how it is that the artist frequently arrives at what appears to besuch an arbitrary 'deformation' of natural forms.

First, he does not attach such intense importance to natural form as do so manyrealist critics, because, for him, these final forms are not the real stuff of theprocess of natural creation. For he places more value on the powers which dothe forming than on the final forms themselves.

He is, perhaps unintentionally, a philosopher, and if he does not, with theoptimists, hold this world to be the best of all possible worlds, nor to be sobad that it is unfit to serve as a model, yet he says:

'In its present shape it is not the only possible world.'

Thus he surveys with penetrating eye the finished forms which nature placesbefore him.

The deeper he looks, the more readily he can extend his view from the presentto the past, the more deeply he is impressed by the one essential image of creationitself, as Genesis, rather than by the image of nature, the finished product.

Then he permits himself the thought that the process of creation can todayhardly be complete and he sees the act of world creation stretching from thepast to the future. Genesis eternal!

He goes still further!

He says to himself, thinking of life around him: this world at one time lookeddifferent and, in the future, will look different again.

Then, flying off to the infinite, he thinks: it is very probable that, on otherstars, creation has produced a completely different result.

Such mobility of thought on the process of natural creation is good training forcreative work.

It has the power to move the artist fundamentally, and since he is himselfmobile, he may be relied upon to maintain freedom of development of his owncreati ve methods.

This being so, the artist must be forgiven if he regards the present state ofoutward appearances in his own particular world as accidentally fixed in timeand space. And as altogether inadequate compared with his penetrating visionand intense depth of feeling.

IV.'\. The Modern as Ideal 349

..'"

These unsettled times have brought chaos and confusion (or so it seems, if weare not too near to judge).

But among artists, even among the youngest of them, one urge seems to begradually gaining ground:The urge to the culture of these creative means, to their pure cultivation, totheir pure use.

The legend of the childishness of my drawing must have originated from thoselinear compositions of mine in which I tried to combine a concrete image, saythat of a man, with the pure representation of the linear element.

Had I wished to present the man 'as he is,' then I should have had to use sucha bewildering confusion of line that pure elementary representation would havebeen out of the question. The result would have been vagueness beyondrecognition.

And anyway, I do not wish to represent the man as he is, but only as he mightbe.

And thus I could arrive at a happy association between my vision of life[Weltanschauung] and pure artistic craftsmanship.

And so it is over the whole field of use of the formal means: in all things, evenin colors, must all trace of vagueness be avoided.

This then is what is called the untrue coloring in modern art.

As you can see from this example of 'childishness' I concern myself with workon the partial processes of art. I am also a draughtsman.

I have tried pure drawing, I have tried painting in pure tone values. In color,I have tried all partial methods to which I have been led by my sense of directionin the color circle. As a result, I have worked out methods of painting in coloredtone values, in complementary colors, in multicolors and methods of total colorpainting.

Always combined with the more subconscious dimensions of the picture.

Then I tried all possible syntheses of two methods. Combining and againcombining, but, of course, always preserving the culture of the pure element.

Sometimes I dream of a work of really great breadth, ranging through the wholeregion of element, object, meaning, and style.

'rhis, I fear, will remain a dream, but it is a good thing even now to bear thepossibility occasionally in mind.

NOthing can be rushed. It must grow, it should grow of itself, and if the timeever Comes for that work - then so much the better!


We must go on seeking it!We have found parts, but not the whole!We still lack the ultimate power, for:the people are not with us.

But we seek a people. We began over there in the Bauhaus. We began therewith a community to which each one of us gave what he had.More we cannot do.

3 Hart Crane (1899-1932) 'General Aims andTheories'

The author was an American poet. This theoretical essay outlines a characteristicallyModernist view on the relation between the contingencies of history and the apparentlytimeless demands of aesthetics. It was written in 1925. This version taken from PhilipHorton, Hart Crane: The Life of an American Poet, New York, 1976.

It is a terrific problem that faces the poet today - a world that is so in transitionfrom a decayed culture toward a reorganization of human evaluations that thereare few common terms, general denominators of speech that are solid enoughor that ring with any vibration or spiritual conviction. The great mythologiesof the past (including the Church) are deprived of enough facade to even launchgood raillery against. Yet much of their traditions are operative still - in millionsof chance combinations of related and unrelated detail, psychological reference,figures of speech, precepts, etc. These are all a part of our common experienceand the terms, at least partially, of that very experience when it defines orextends itself.

The deliberate program, then, of a 'break' with the past or tradition seemsto me to be a sentimental fallacy [ ... ]

I put no particular value on the simple objective of 'modernity.' The elementof the temporal location of an artist's creation is of very secondary importance;it can be left to the impressionist or historian just as well. It seems to me thata poet will accidentally define his time well enough simply by reacting honestlyand to the full extent of his sensibilities to the states of passion, experience andrumination that fate forces on him, first hand. He must, of course, have asufficiently universal basis of experience to make his imagination selective andvaluable. His picture of the 'period,' then, will simply be a by-product of hiscuriosity and the relation of his experience to a postulated 'eternity.'

I am concerned with the future of America, but not because I think thatAmerica has any so-called par value as a state or as a group of people ... It isonly because I feel persuaded that here are destined to be discovered certain asyet undefined spiritual quantities, perhaps a new hierarchy of faith not to bedeveloped so completely elsewhere. And in this process I like to feel myself asa potential factor; certainly I must speak in its terms and what discoveries Imay make are situated in its experience.

iva the modern as ideal - · pdf fileiva the modern as ideal 1 walter gropius (1883-1969)...

Documents