Alina Alexandra Payne

In the late 19th century, a centuries-old preference for highly ornamented architecture gave way to a budding Modernism of clean lines and unadorned surfaces. At the same moment, everyday objects--cups, saucers, chairs, and tables--began to receive critical attention. Alina Payne addresses this shift, arguing for a new understanding of the genealogy of architectural modernism: rather than the well-known story in which an absorption of technology and mass production created a radical aesthetic that broke decisively with the past, Payne argues for a more gradual shift, as the eloquence of architectural ornamentation was taken on by objects of daily use. As she demonstrates, the work of Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier should be seen as the culmination of a conversation about ornament dating as far back as the Renaissance. Payne looks beyond the usual suspects of philosophy and science to establish theoretical catalysts for the shift from ornament to object in the varied fields of anthropology and ethnology; art history and the museum; and archaeology and psychology.

Genealogies of Architectural Modernism

From Ornament to Object

Andrew Hopkins

Alois Riegl

Arnold Alexander Witte

Delivered three times between 1898 and 1902 and subsequently revised with an eye toward publication, Alois Riegl's lectures on the origins of Baroque art in Rome broke new ground in its field. In his approach and content, Riegl offered a markedly different account from that of Heinrich Wölfflin and other contemporaries: the beginning of the new artistic era extending from the 1520s to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was to be judged by its own rules and not merely as a period of decline. This first English translation brings Riegl's compelling vision of the Baroque to life and amply illustrates his charisma as a lecturer. His text is full of perceptive observations on the most important artists of the period from Michelangelo to Caravaggio. By taking the spectator into consideration, Riegl identifies a crucial defining change between Renaissance and Baroque art and provides invaluable inspiration for present-day readers.

Alina Alexandra Payne

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