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135 4 GEOMET| y, PU| e DESIGN, AND DYNAMIC SYMMETRY Much of the weakness of modern art is due to too much sex, too much sentiment, and too little design. jay hambidge, 1923 The experiments in physiological psychology demonstrated the links between the visual perception of form, the mind, and mathematical laws and thereby reaffirmed Ross’s belief that geometry had a fundamental place in design theory. His promotion of geometry contributed to the resurgent attention to proportion that occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century: geometry became a panacea in Europe and America for the design dilemmas that faced artists and architects intent on modern solutions. For architects, geometry offered a way to rethink the use of historical styles; for artists, a way to rethink the goals of academic art. Not everyone used geometry for the same end. Le Corbusier presented the abstruse calculations of his Modulor as part of the international style of high modernism; Frank Lloyd Wright, however, used geometry to generate highly individual and site-specific designs. Ross’s particular understanding of geometry’s bene fits united him with other American design theorists: Samuel Colman, Hardesty Maratta, and Jay Hambidge. The consensus among them provides an important lens on how this group of Americans thought geometry might aid the artist and the architect, and how they might profit from the study of great works of the past. They conceptualized design theory as a means of understanding both past and present design and as a way to unite scholarship with practice. Even a cursory glance through their writings suggests what united these men. They all spoke of laws and principles in nature; saw in science a way to improve art; wanted to counter the growing emphasis on feeling with a greater emphasis on design knowledge; and believed that laws and principles 136 : Denman Ross & American Design Theory freed, rather than restricted, the artist. Ross served as a connecting point between the men. Colman acknowledged Ross in his books, while Ross used Colman’s plates in his classes at Harvard; Maratta and Ross equally supported one another’s efforts; and Ross served as one of Hambidge’s most munificent benefactors and promoters. Hambidge soon became the sun of this solar system; his theory of dynamic symmetry made him one of the most talked-about figures of the period (Ross’s methods of composition would materially change after meeting Hambidge). He has, nonetheless, attracted little scholarly attention. This chapter will therefore focus on his theory and connections with Ross in order to draw out what they proposed and why it appealed to Americans. For Hambidge and the others, design remained a rational endeavor tied to the visual apprehension of an object’s formal composition. Geometry offered an objective basis for design because it transcended the specifics of place and time: it provided the grammar that allowed a designer’s imagination to write the poetry of their own era. Hambidge ’s popularity coincided with events such as the Armory Show of 1913 and World War I. Dynamic symmetry, therefore, seemed to offer confidence and grounding to the designer and scholar at the point where the ground seemed most unstable. Central to the beliefs of Ross and his colleagues was the connection between geometry and nature. In the nineteenth century, nature and its representation had a prominent place in American attitudes toward art, design, and beauty, especially as voiced by writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Ruskin. In the twentieth century, the tide of modernism submerged nature’s place and made abstraction the universal language of a new machine age that operated separately and autonomously from nature. Architectural historians like Neil Levine, seeking to break the hegemonic hold of modernist definitions of modern design, have used the works of Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Picasso, and Claude Bragdon to suggest a continuing pattern of nature and its representation in art and architecture.∞ Ross and Hambidge contribute to this pattern because their theories attracted a number of artists and designers who combined a commitment to rigorous formal composition with the retention of representational subjects. Painters such as Robert Henri, George Bellows, Arthur Dove, Grant Wood, Stuart Davis, Karl Knaths, and Fairfield Porter knew Hambidge’s and Ross’s theories; Albert Southwick, Louis C. Tiffany’s head designer, used dynamic symmetry frequently.≤ Pure design and dynamic symmetry also attracted adherents of modern design typically set outside of the modernist definition— such...

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