On Humanist Fashion

The Steampunk post generated some chatter, so I’m working on some variations on a theme by Clark, opus No. 2 in the return to blogdom.

Playing the worthy role of perpetual thorn in my neo-traditionalist backside, Clark has skillfully baited his hook by referring to humanist design elements as mere fashion. I will, of course, rise to the bait and hilarity will ensue as Clark proceeds to beat me with his puritanical stick. For some odd reason we enjoy this little Kabuki dance so here we go…

Just about everyone has heard the axioms by now:

A) “Form follows function.”

B) “Form and function are one.”

C) “Function follows form.” (for the Gehry-ites out there)

Surprisingly enough, I tend to think more along the lines of Option A. While every aspiring architect loves to spout off about how their design is oh, so critical and every single piece only adds to the function of the whole, it tends to reduce the design to such a level as to be clinical in its sterility. Being trained as a Bauhaus modernist made me strive long and hard to achieve that perfect synthesis of form and function that just made you melt it was so sexy. Unfortunately, as I encountered more and more of these masterpieces “in the wild” I realized that the livability of the spaces was compromised by the puritanical desire of the designer for unadulterated functional forms. They lost their sexiness in a heartbeat as soon as a lowly human worked up enough courage to actually inhabit the space and try to put all of their stuff, their cultural detritus, into the environment. I didn’t so much see “Machines for Living” as “Living for Machines”.

I have no problem admitting that form follows function. In fact, I revel in it. It’s the form that contains all of the bits and pieces that make the thing fun. Take the somewhat nonsensical problem of identifying linens in the household. I have never in my life owned a monogrammed towel, nor do I have any desire to do so. Just for the sake of argument, however, let’s assume that my wife and I had the irrational and admittedly effete desire to differentiate our identical bath towels. The puritanical American streak would tell me to grab a Sharpie and put our initials on the seam, supremely functional and utterly artless. If I were a suburbanite yuppie I would get the monogrammed towels from Pottery Barn and my attractive towels would match entirely too many other suburbanite yuppie towels. For me personally, if I had to have a way to tell some towels apart, I would hop on Adobe Illustrator and bang out a family crest to use on anything I wanted. I’d buy some nice quality towels and have them embroidered with the family crest and our initials underneath. Yeah, it’s completely goofball, but it sure would be fun and I’d have a connection to my towel that I wouldn’t get by using any other method. There would be a symbolism to the function that would provide satisfaction beyond the function. And now you know exactly why I DON’T have monogrammed towels.

Let’s look at a more plausible conundrum for me. I have the desire to eventually get into brewing my own beer. In fact, I’ve already identified some of the styles that I like the most and I even have some names picked out for my versions. I’d love to brew a good Helles Lager, and when I do it will be called Dante’s Nine Helles. I’ll probably end up kegging the beer and trying to get some good tap handles to use for it. Once again, the puritanical approach would be to hook a picnic tap right onto the keg, cheap and effective. The fun for me, however, would be designing the logo for the custom tap handle or the cool label to put on the bottles. None of this would change the flavor of the beer one iota, but it would greatly impact my appreciation of the beer and hopefully that of everyone else who got to experience the imagery along with the taste.

There is so much more art for me in putting those personal touches onto the things which impact my life on a regular basis. They are almost always decorative, meaning that there are invariably cheaper and simpler methods to perform the same task with similar results. While it may be fashion, I would not rid my life of it for any reason, and I have no doubt that many fashions will still manage to long outlast me. I love the old English apothecary logos as examples of decorative art that are still classy and effective hundreds of years after their creation. I would venture to say that this sort of “fashion” never really becomes “unfashionable”. If it’s good design it will last, even if it isn’t directly tied to function.

That’s the long way for me to get back around to the idea that fashion (or decoration) doesn’t necessarily put an expiration date on aesthetic appeal, as I still find the Parthenon to be incredibly appealing as a structure. I find that decoration often enhances the appreciation of a thing, and that to me is incredibly important for things I come into constant contact with. It’s exactly why I would get more satisfaction out of an artfully designed keyboard, no matter what style, than the mass produced crap I type on every day. It isn’t all about the function or how the form enhances the function, for me it’s about how I perceive the thing as it performs its function.

Steampunk'd

I’m back to the blog (at least temporarily) to throw out some more ramblings now that Darling Daughter #3 has arrived healthy and beautiful. I’ve missed being able to throw the odd, occasional thoughts into written form and hopefully a few new readers and old friends will stop by and take a look.

I’ll give a tip of my hat to Tim over at Old World Swine for prompting me to briefly explore the Rube Goldberg-esque subculture known as Steampunk. While I was aware of its existence on the fringes of my mind, I also knew that as a genuine subculture it was bound to have leanings toward the absurd end of the human experience. Think of it as the positivist, pseudo-conservative counterpart to the dystopian realm of Cyberpunk. While both are amusing and more than a little frightening in their purest forms as complete lifestyle options, Steampunk has managed to find a soft spot in my heart when it comes to the wide world of design. (All images courtesy of http://www.datamancer.com/)



The aesthetic amalgamation of quality materials with classic forms and motifs applied to thoroughly modern devices inspires (at least for me) a markedly more sober appreciation for the very real power inherent in our array of electronic gadgetry. Take your typical, ubiquitous laptop computer, deployed by scores of over-caffeinated college chaps and lasses at the local bookstore. As a piece of industrial design, I personally feel that most models embody the definition of mediocre. Even the Apples of the laptop world, with their strict minimalism, are noteworthy more for their projection of the tabula rasa rather than the Portal to All Knowledge. When you think of exactly what it is that the machine allows you to accomplish, you realize its enormous worth as one of the most powerful leveraging devices in acquiring the vast wealth of accumulated human knowledge, experience, and history. In the not-so-distant past the laptop computer would certainly have portrayed this power in an entirely different way, ornamented and carefully crafted to announce to the world its place as The Key to the wonders of the ancients, the galleries of the Louvre, or the arcane mastery of Galileo or Einstein.

It is that rare sense of awe that I find exhibited in the fancies of Steampunk design. While often terribly overwrought, the best examples still show that spark of realization that there is eternal value inherent in the most disposable of techie widgets. In another post at Tim’s blog he shows a Steampunk inspired thumb drive – Why shouldn’t this disposable piece of junk acknowledge in its physicality the very real and awesome ability to contain more information than the Library of Alexandria? The humble laptop should proudly reflect its position as the modern Oracle, minus the arduous journey and temple virgins of course…

Tim's New(ish) Digs

A belated notice that astute commenter Tim Jones has started his own little corner of the blogosphere - Old World Swine. Please frequent his fine site and soak up the seriously good art he's producing. I'm a big fan of the landscapes myself and I believe he's looking into some more liturgical art in the future - music to my ears.

Whapping Gems

Whapster Matthew has posted both a beautiful story about his father and a wonderful drawing and commentary on the state of modern iconography. I link to them here because both dovetail well with some of the discussions on this blog regarding art and iconography in the modern church. Please do check them out and visit The Shrine of the Holy Whapping regularly for more great stuff.

Papa on Art

I cannot recommend highly enough the wonderful book The Spirit of the Liturgy by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who we all know has a new name now. There is a great chapter dealing with images in the church and it has been excerpted here (part I) and here (part II). I think it is important reading for those who have been involved in discussing the role of Christian art. Hopefully it can provide some fruitful discussion on how Christianity should approach art in our current state. I’ll include a not-so-short excerpt here to at least get you interested, but please do read the links above and let me know what you think.

…What is more, art itself, which in impressionism and expressionism explored the extreme possibilities of the sense of sight, becomes literally object-less. Art turns into experimenting with self-created worlds, empty "creativity", which no longer perceives the Creator Spiritus, the Creator Spirit. It attempts to take his place, and yet, in so doing, it manages to produce only what is arbitrary and vacuous, bringing home to man the absurdity of his role as creator.

Again we must ask: Where do we go from here? Let us try to sum up what we have said so far and to identify the fundamental principles of an art ordered to divine worship.

…The complete absence of images is incompatible with faith in the Incarnation of God. God has acted in history and entered into our sensible world, so that it may become transparent to Him. Images of beauty, in which the mystery of the invisible God becomes visible, are an essential part of Christian worship. There will always be ups and downs in the history of iconography, upsurge and decline, and therefore periods when images are somewhat sparse. But they can never be totally lacking. Iconoclasm is not a Christian option…

…The image of Christ and the images of the saints are not photographs. Their whole point is to lead us beyond what can be apprehended at the merely material level, to awaken new senses in us, and to teach us a new kind of seeing, which perceives the Invisible in the visible…

…There must, of course, be no rigid norms. Freshly received intuitions and the ever-new experiences of piety must find a place in the Church. But still there is a difference between sacred art (which is related to the liturgy and belongs to the ecclesial sphere) and religious art in general. There cannot be completely free expression in sacred art. Forms of art that deny the logos of things and imprison man within what appears to the senses are incompatible with the Church's understanding of the image. No sacred art can come from an isolated subjectivity…

…But what does all this mean practically? Art cannot be "produced", as one contracts out and produces technical equipment. It is always a gift. Inspiration is not something one can choose for oneself. It has to be received, otherwise it is not there. One cannot bring about a renewal of art in faith by money or through commissions. Before all things it requires the gift of a new kind of seeing. And so it would be worth our while to regain a faith that sees. Wherever that exists, art finds its proper expressions.