dieser beitrag wurde verfasst in: englisch (eng/en)
titel: Walls Call: Time for Mural Art to Develop Here
+: The New York Times, Nov. 23, 1930, p. 12
UNLESS all the talk spends itself without arriving at the point of action, mural painting promises to come prominently to the fore in America. As a matter of fact there has already within the last few years been considerable activity in this direction. Mural art such as truly reflects our own age has been proved feasible. Some paintings, like the Boardman Robinson murals now installed in the Kaufmann department store of Pittsburgh, are on canvas: others, like the Orozco «Prometheus» out in California, are in true fresco. Whatever the medium employed, the painting of our modern walls in a spirit not of outlived techniques proceeds with gratifying enthusiasm.
Several writers in the symposium section of Oliver M. Sayler's new book, «Revolt in the Arts,» have something to say on the subject. Boardman Robinson reminds us that «most of the great painting of the past was spread upon walls, in cooperation with architecture, in public places, and the same was relatively true of sculpture.» This statement would seem to require a good deal of qualification, but the point emphasized is perfectly sound.
Continuing, this artist observes:
«Now, it seems possible that in our present tendency to mass production lies a way out ot the excessive state of subjectivity into which the plastic arts have fallen. The projected Chicago exposition may present an opportunity for painters and sculptors to attack enormous areas and masses with the help of trained assistants or even journeymen craftsmen. Under such conditions it is hard to conceive of artists designing without a large motive. The fact that large spaces are unsuited to idiosyncratic treatment will encourage works not merely striking but significant of something more than ornamentation of surfaces. Such an opportunity may afford a means of producing a popular art without stooping to a low level of popular taste, but, by the use of form and color, to reach deep instincts, emotions and ideas underlying all the sociological influences from which humanity suffers. Such an attitude seems to me to be the secret of the great art of the past.
«Opportunity for the real school lies in such large undertakings. Big jobs require assistants, who should be pupils in the best sense of the word, working on the job and learning in the actual practice all the master can teach, or better still, learning with him. *** I should Iike to substitute the shop for the studio, the job for the concours. Perhaps the apprentice system in the old sense is impossible today, but we may approximate it.»
JOHN SLOAN, in the same book, believes that «many energetic and creatively active American painters today are eager to turn their efforts to mural work, and this,» he adds, «is a tendency of promising significance. Architects and owners control the situation, but there are painters who will be able to provide as good wall pictures as the architects may desire.
«In this branch of painting Mexico leads this hemisphere, if not the world. A nation of artists at our doors – and we seek France!
«The importance of mural paintings, as an expression of the general interest of the people in art and as a stimulant to that interest, is very great, and, if architects will cooperate with painters, they may come into more general use. Conservative timidity is a factor that must be overcome.
«The general trend of the time, while not of the best for the utilization of our painters, has elements of hope for the future. In fact, it may not be too much to say that we are about to do our share. We are the great unspanked baby of the world. We will become adult. When we do we will use our artists. They will be on hand. To be without interest in paintings is to be without contact with about one-fourth of the means of spiritual intercommunication. The american people will find that they need pictures.»
Frank Lloyd Wright shares the opinion that «cooperation with the architect is the only real opportunity either painter or sculptor will ever have – or ever had, for that matter.»
***
IN THE course of an article in the October number of Parnassus, a magazine published by the College Art Association, Francis Henry Taylor, curator of medieval art in the Pennsylvania Museum, observes:
«We have the wealth, the vitality; we hear it on every side. New methods of construction have brought about the skyscraper, which, passing through a period of eclecticism, is advancing to a great and powerful architecture, due to the healthy disciplines of zoning laws and other economic restrictions. New vistas are opened to the sculptor and the mural painter in their collaboration with the architect to decorate the vast surfaces presented by these mammoth enterprises.»
Surely, Dr. Taylor adds, «there is no country more ripe to have a revival of the arts. But we must remember that a renaissance does not come to us like a golden wedding as a reward for constancy. lt must be a genuine rebirth in which we as a people must be as willing to give as to receive. *** Our responsibility lies with the artist, to give him the nourishment by which he may increase his stature – sympathy and understanding and proof of a tolerance he has never known.»