Ornament and European modernism: from art practice to art history

Abstract

Through in-depth essays on selected issues related to the meaning of ornament and its theoretical importance for the formation of modernism especially in England, Austria, and Germany, the collection re-examines two issues in particular: on the one hand the critical discourse that appeared at the end of the nineteenth century focused on the relationship between art practice, art theory and the rising of modernism, and, on the other, the operative value ornament came to acquire in the construction, settling, and revision of the discipline of art history. The essay volume deals also with the falling into pieces of the long-sought and never-secured unity of art and ornament that marks out the entrance of modernity. Contributors to the volume treat these ill-defined aspects of the separation-process which juts forth into postmodernism. The essays, ranging from Owen Jones to Ernst Gombrich through Gottfried Semper, Alois Riegl, August Schmarsow, Wilhelm Worringer, Adolf Loos, Henry van de Velde, and Hermann Muthesius, show how artistic theories are deeply related to the art practice of their own times, and how ornament lends itself to probe historical transformations.

Contents

Introduction -- Owen Jones's theory of ornament / Isabelle J. Frank -- Function, fiction, flux, and silence : ornamental theory, science, and the modern search for aesthetic volition / Debra K. Schafter -- August Schmarsow's theory of ornament / Christiane Hertel -- The veil of truth? Van de Velde, Muthesius, and the battle over ornament in modern architecture / Ole W. Fischer -- Ornament, image, and tension in Ernst Gombrich's theory of perception / Loretta Vandi and Pavlos Jerenis -- Bibliography -- Index of people -- Index of places -- Index of subjects.