Preface

Rand, Paul

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Preface

Paul Rand

From Lascaux to Brooklyn

The cave of Lascaux was discovered in September 1940 by four boys roaming through the woods near Montignac in the Dordogne (France). Among the many drawings of ibex, oxen, bison, and antelope is the sophisticated drawing of a wild horse (frontispiece), sometimes referred to as the Chinese horse because it seems to have been transplanted from an old Chinese print. Leroi-Gourhan’s chronology for paleolithic art places the images in the ancient Magdalenian period, circa 15,000 B.C.

Author

Paul Rand

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00052.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14938

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsLascaux Cave (France)

Preface

Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

*There is no such thing as bad content, only bad form. This explains the place of form in art.

*with few exceptions

The cave of Lascaux was discovered in September 1940 by four boys roaming through the woods near Montignac in the Dordogne (France). Among the many drawings of ibex, oxen, bison, and antelope is the sophisticated drawing of a wild horse (frontispiece), sometimes referred to as the Chinese horse because it seems to have been transplanted from an old Chinese print. Leroi-Gourhan’s chronology for paleolithic art places the images in the ancient Magdalenian period, circa 15,000 b.c.

The great lesson of the cave paintings of Lascaux is that art is an intuitive, autonomous, and timeless activity and works independently of the development of society.

The premise on which this book is based draws no distinction between the so-called fine arts and the applied arts or artifacts. Even the terms art and design, artist and designer are used interchangeably. Unlike the practitioners of l’art pour l’art, I believe what determines the status of art is not genre but quality. Thus, a beautifully designed advertisement, poster, or piece of printed ephemera, assuming that it is both utilitarian and aesthetically satisfying, is as much a part of the genus art as is a painting or sculpture. In fact, as I see it, if a printed piece focuses only on the aesthetic, ignoring the practical, it does not qualify as art.

Like mathematics, the principles of aesthetics involve the abstract formal properties of things and applies to everything — to apples and to oranges, to ideas and to things — regardless of one’s feelings, opinions, or emotions.

It is naive to believe that one can explain in just a few words what others have considered it a “formidable task” to define: the complexities of the ineffable — of aesthetics — and the definitions of art, form, design, intuition, and expression, as well as the ramifications of communication.1 “I have not attempted the formidable task of defining ‘aesthetic’ in general, but have simply argued that since the exercise, training, and development of our powers of discriminating among works of art are plainly aesthetic activities, the aesthetic properties of a picture include not only those found by looking at it but also those that determine how it is to be looked at.”
Nelson Goodman, “Art and Authenticity,” Aesthetics Today (New York, 1980), 193. My purpose in writing this book is to clarify problems that have always baffled me and to emphasize the importance of the idea as such, as a unique thought and as the very life of form. This book is not a comprehensive study of the philosophy of art. The ideas expressed here are based on empirical practices, laced with whatever wisdom I can claim or quote.

I designed this book with the hope of arousing the reader’s curiosity, underlining the relevance of the study of aesthetics, and linking art to daily work. The book is my attempt to define, as best I can, aesthetics and the aesthetic experience as they affect the designer, the student, the marketer, and the researcher and to help designers articulate some of their problems. At the same time, it is well to remember that “a great poet or painter may hold the wrong theory, an array of conflicting theories, or no theory at all. Who cares? The work is the thing.”2 Albert Guérard, “Dream,” Bottle in the Sea (Cambridge, 1954), 81.

The practice of design—the art of communication—is sorely lacking a means of communication, a language to make the practice of and discussions about design clear and interesting. There are a number of important books about aesthetics. What they have in common is heft and complexity (Monroe Beardsley’s book on aesthetics totals 614 pages, and Hegel’s reaches 1,237 pages). While not easy reading, they are immensely rewarding.

I have formatted this book, at least the first section, as a primer. I believe this style is as suitable for adults as it is for children, for it promises less verbiage and a speedier route to the point. The eighteenth-century Bodoni typeface in which the book is set is an example of a basic design that never goes out of style and a reminder of Dewey’s “a work of art is recreated every time it is esthetically experienced.”

The remainder of the book deals with work—and problems—in progress and connects both to principles of aesthetics. Even though the subject matter of the various chapters may seem quite diverse, each bears a kinship to the cave paintings of Lascaux. Aesthetics is the common ingredient. Corporate Decorum, for example, is concerned with the relation between art and business. Four Presentations attempts to demonstrate how the subject of design can be presented to prospective clients. Tschichold versus Bill is a spirited and emotional debate about typographic style. And finally, More about the Grid is a graphic demonstration of the aesthetics of combinatorial geometry.

Thanks to Judy Metro, my editor, whose skills have not faded with the passage of time, and to Susan Laity, for her eagle eye; to Philip Mimaki, for his magical somersaults on the computer; to Gregory Corrigan, Doug Evans, Baruch Gorkin, Nick Juliani, John Maeda, Mario Rampone, and Mike Tardif, for their technological talents; and to Marion, my wife and walking Webster.

1 “I have not attempted the formidable task of defining ‘aesthetic’ in general, but have simply argued that since the exercise, training, and development of our powers of discriminating among works of art are plainly aesthetic activities, the aesthetic properties of a picture include not only those found by looking at it but also those that determine how it is to be looked at.”
Nelson Goodman, “Art and Authenticity,” Aesthetics Today (New York, 1980), 193. »

2 Albert Guérard, “Dream,” Bottle in the Sea (Cambridge, 1954), 81. »

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