DOI Heft:
Nr. 169 (March, 1911)
DOI Artikel:Twenty-sixth annual exhibition of the Architectural League of New York
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43446#0046
A rchitectural League
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BUNGALOW, WHITE BEAR LAKE, MINN. REED AND STEM, ARCHITECTS
by critics of American architectural exhibitions that
the influence of contemporary French work,brought
back from Paris by American students of the fine
arts, is beginning perceptibly to lessen and give way
to a deeper and more serious view of the future in
store for American art. Our painters and sculp-
tors, although subjected perhaps equally to the
same influence, have never come as completely
under the foreign spell as have the architects. Yet
American mural decoration and architectural sculp-
ture, too, are showing an even stronger determina-
tion than before to approach domestic problems in a
spirit of wholesome independence. Such a course
implies no breaking with tradition, but, rather, the
formation of a new one, based on a mature knowl-
edge of the old and developed in the light of present-
day life and progress in the United States. Neither
does it signify, on the other hand, that American art
in general is speedily destined to settle down to a
comfortable conservatism. No country during the
past two or three decades has been the scene of a
greater number of daring and experimental efforts
at national expression, and there is no reason for
asserting that such will not continue to be the case
in the future. At the same time it is extremely
doubtful that, with our more thorough knowledge
and added experience, there will ever again be pro-
duced the large number of aberrations of architec-
ture, painting and sculpture of which our formative
period was guilty, or, for that matter, as many life-
less copies of irrelevant traditional inspiration. The
extremes in American artistic thought are meeting
on a common ground and our national art is already
showing marked signs of being the gainer thereby.
These sentiments apply particularly to the art of
architecture. Painting and sculpture were quicker
in arriving at a sane view of their future, but
in their relation to architecture were hampered by
its conflicting tendencies and the lack of a well-
defined ideal. After the architect’s work on a de-
sign is done it is the sympathetic work of the brush
and the modeling tool which lends it final point and
give it life, echoing and reflecting, in a measure, its
highest aspirations. In order, therefore, that the
expression may be one of purity and unity the archi-
tect must design with a well-defined architectural
goal. For example, it avails little for the advance-
ment of art to have a talented mural painter or deco-
rative sculptor execute masterly works and intend
them as parts of an architectural composition, of
XXIV
■ ■ . .. ■■ .. . ■ -
BUNGALOW, WHITE BEAR LAKE, MINN. REED AND STEM, ARCHITECTS
by critics of American architectural exhibitions that
the influence of contemporary French work,brought
back from Paris by American students of the fine
arts, is beginning perceptibly to lessen and give way
to a deeper and more serious view of the future in
store for American art. Our painters and sculp-
tors, although subjected perhaps equally to the
same influence, have never come as completely
under the foreign spell as have the architects. Yet
American mural decoration and architectural sculp-
ture, too, are showing an even stronger determina-
tion than before to approach domestic problems in a
spirit of wholesome independence. Such a course
implies no breaking with tradition, but, rather, the
formation of a new one, based on a mature knowl-
edge of the old and developed in the light of present-
day life and progress in the United States. Neither
does it signify, on the other hand, that American art
in general is speedily destined to settle down to a
comfortable conservatism. No country during the
past two or three decades has been the scene of a
greater number of daring and experimental efforts
at national expression, and there is no reason for
asserting that such will not continue to be the case
in the future. At the same time it is extremely
doubtful that, with our more thorough knowledge
and added experience, there will ever again be pro-
duced the large number of aberrations of architec-
ture, painting and sculpture of which our formative
period was guilty, or, for that matter, as many life-
less copies of irrelevant traditional inspiration. The
extremes in American artistic thought are meeting
on a common ground and our national art is already
showing marked signs of being the gainer thereby.
These sentiments apply particularly to the art of
architecture. Painting and sculpture were quicker
in arriving at a sane view of their future, but
in their relation to architecture were hampered by
its conflicting tendencies and the lack of a well-
defined ideal. After the architect’s work on a de-
sign is done it is the sympathetic work of the brush
and the modeling tool which lends it final point and
give it life, echoing and reflecting, in a measure, its
highest aspirations. In order, therefore, that the
expression may be one of purity and unity the archi-
tect must design with a well-defined architectural
goal. For example, it avails little for the advance-
ment of art to have a talented mural painter or deco-
rative sculptor execute masterly works and intend
them as parts of an architectural composition, of
XXIV