Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1903 (Heft 4))

THE “FLAT-IRON” BUILDING.—
AN ESTHETICAL DISSERTATION.
ESTHETICISM AND the “ Flat-iron." Isn't that a paradox at the
very start?
“Surely, you do not mean to tell us that the eyesore at Twenty-third Street
and Broadway has anything to do with art?” some of my readers will
incredulously ask. Why not ? At all events,it is a building—although
belonging to no style to be found in handbooks or histories of architecture-
which, by its peculiar shape and towering height, attracts the attention of
every passerby. True enough. there are sky-scrapers which are still higher,
and can boast of five or six tiers more, but never in the history of mankind
has a little triangular piece of real estate been utilized in such a raffiné manner
as in this instance. It is typically American in conception as well as
execution. It is a curiosity of modern architecture, solely built for utilitarian
purposes, and at the same time a masterpiece of iron-construction. It is a
building without a main faҫade, resembling more than anything else the
prow of a giant man-of-war. And we would not be astonished in the least,
if the whole triangular block would suddenly begin to move northward through
the crowd of pedestrians and traffic of our two leading thoroughfares,
which would break like the waves of the ocean on the huge prow-like angle.
A curious creation, no doubt, but can it be called beautiful? That depends
largely on what is understood by beautiful. Beauty is a very abstract idea.
The painters of the Middle Ages represented the human body in an angular,
ascetic way, emaciated and long-drawn; in the Renaissance the human form
rounded perceptibly, and in the Rococo it had gained in width what it had
formerly possessed in length. All these three styles have been called
beautiful, and had their advocates and opponents. The runs of a quarto by
Guido de Arezzo strike despair on modern ears, and a Wagner opera would
probably have brought despair to the ear of Guido de Arezzo. We laugh
at Allston's pictures which pleased our grandfathers, and our grandfathers
call us crazy for admiring Monet. The most respectable young lady in the
time of Louis XV went more decolleté than would any lady without
principles and prejudice to-day. The most frivolous girl of the Rococo
period would have repudiated even the suspicion of dancing a galop. The
Germans ascribe all the changes of taste to the Zeitgeist, i.e. , spirit of
the time, and history tells us that it has always been so.
Every person has his own views of good and bad, on morality, beauty, etc.
And the totality of these views, as represented by a community in a
certain period of time, dictates the laws in all matters pertaining to life as
well as to art. There are, of course, different tendencies bitterly fighting with
each other for supremacy. The artists work out their ideals, the critics
argue pro and con, and the public debates and tries to settle matters to
its own satisfaction. Suddenly a change in the prevailing taste becomes
palpable, rather timidly at first, but steadily growing in strength, and
finally old convictions and theories give up the fight and give way to the

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