The Shadow

This is a conspiracy theory based on no evidence whatsoever, folks. It is pure ad hominem conjecture with no basis in fact. It is worthless claptrap.

Well, let’s see. You “liked” Pavel’s post where he incorrectly stated that no one would like to hear a Stravinsky sentence on Bach, so I thought it was relevant to point out the piece where Stravinsky directly writes his own sentence on Bach. As to the relevance to the thread as a whole, since Pavel brought music into it, I thought it would be illustrative to bring up a few examples where a more contemporary artist directly reimagined what a prior century’s musician had done and how that could apply to a contemporary architect reimagining the more than century-old Notre Dame spire. I can’t help whether you see the relevance or not ... and don’t particularly care.

It will be nice if Pavel and Ed take this opportunity to learn a bit more about music. I’m not asking that you like the idea of a more contemporary approach to the Notre Dame spire. But I would like to ask that you not make false claims about musical history. The piece above is a Stravinsky transcription and arrangement for orchestra of a Bach keyboard piece, pretty much precisely a Stravinsky sentence written on a Bach story. Granted, in this case, Stravinsky didn’t impose much of his own style onto Bach and kept it more in Bach’s voice than his own. So, one might next consider the well-known Tchaikovsky sentence written on a Mozart story, where Tchaikovsky took several of Mozart’s solo piano pieces and orchestrated and arranged them in very much Tchaikovsky’s own style while still paying homage to the originals. Moving on, there’s the very popular (people loved and still love hearing it) “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows,” a sentence by musician Harry Carroll written on the story of Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu, here performed by the legendary Jo Stafford. Again, it’s certainly fine to have your own taste in architecture and music and to be a traditionalist or not in certain instances, but let’s not deny that many people love the updating, recreation, and reimagining of all sorts of art. I leave you with a much more controversial piece from Chinese artist AI Weiwei. Im not advocating for his art, just pointing to its existence and the fact that many do love what he’s doing, though many also hate it. https://publicdelivery.org/ai-weiwei-dropping-a-han-dynasty-urn/

Ask and ye shall receive ...

No. As far as I can tell, no one has yet submitted a design or plan, and I’d wait to see those before recommending someone. I do like what Stephen Barrett had to say about the sight of the sky and light and transparency. His idea of luminosity and his mentioning the feeling of a beacon intrigue me as well. I’d be very interested in seeing a more specific, detailed proposal from him. There are plenty of other great architects who I’m sure will submit worthwhile proposals.

Please try harder not to misquote people. I did not ask this question. The OP asked it and I later gave a response. [An easy way not to misattribute quotes is to use the REPLY button in the lower right hand corner of each post. That will automatically quote the post and attribute it to the person who wrote it. If you don’t want to quote the entire post, you can simply delete the text you prefer not to include once it’s been quoted, but you won’t risk getting the person who said it wrong, which you often do.]

Of course, I’ve already taken that into account and know the difference between someone disagreeing with me and someone being anti-art. You, for instance, often disagree with me but I’ve never thought of you as anti-art. On the other hand, there are members who consistently put down art, the art world, and art criticism. Thanks for asking.

I guess I can own that. Part of it is getting older and a bit crusty. Part is disappointment with less and less artistry and artistic takes on PN, more and more overtly anti-art sentiment, and a noticeable turn toward traditionalism which sometimes seems downright reactionary, especially when it comes to photography, art, aesthetics, and acceptance of the new and as yet untold. This arouses my passion.

And who here is drooling over the Immortality of a thing, the spire itself, and the style of that spire which was a bolder departure at the time than many seem able or willing to imagine? Might as well pay homage to bold departure as to historical fidelity since, in this case, they seem to go hand-in-hand.

As I said, it’s ironic that some seem to be demanding a faithfulness to historical accuracy when recreation of this particular spire will be faithfulness to what was considered by many at the time a presumptuous departure from the original state of the cathedral. Wrap your aheads around that for just a bit before claims the high ground.

There’s nothing to restore. It’s been destroyed. They may try to recreate it, and some may convince themselves that’s a restoration, but it seems from these articles as though it is as likely to be replaced with something different as mimicked for historical accuracy and faithfulness not, of course, to the original architecture of the building but to a much later addition to it.

At the point you determine. This is probably not unusual but still worth rethinking. As gender stereotypes conform less and less to old paradigms, I’m not sure most men or women would want to be treated with such pre-determined differences as much as they’d want to be dealt with as individuals. I suspect there’s a coming together of sensibilities in this realm where you’re likely to find women not adverse to being seen for the character and life experience written on their faces and likely to find men with the desire to soften that. i think it’s as much about the kind of photo I’m looking at or making.. I’ve done photos that lend themselves to a lot more softening and processing, photos that emulate more of a Hollywood glamour style. They’re personal portraits that can still bring out character but not by intervening less but rather by intervening more. I’ve done weddings where I’ve felt obliged and also more naturally-inclined to flatter the subjects, make and female. Street portraits I’ve done tend to get little touch-up. As far as touch-up being noticed, probably a good start is toward refinement and subtlety as long as you keep in mind that sometimes more obviousness can be expressive and may be just the ticket for a given shot. Bruce Gilden and even Avedon in some instances exaggerated what some might call flaws. Others went to great lengths to mask them. There’s room for both approaches, especially in different circumstances.

One of the things that preceded you and will live after you is the constancy of change. Well worth cherishing are your children and future generations who learn from you and will ultimately break free of your constraints. So will thought, art, and convention. Stubbornness is not a substitute for wisdom. The spire is gone. Permanently. Cherish that as you cherish a dead parent. Most things gone don’t demand or even deserve resurrection but rather provide an opportunity for acceptance.

A pivotal and telling quote from the second article JDM linked to. This need for certitude certainly helps explain religion. It also helps explain iconic churches and the desire for traditions to hold onto. It doesn’t explain a lot of art, a lot of mystery, ambiguity, and some of the risk and driving force of the relished lack of certainty in a lot of forward-looking vision and thought.

Enjoy life while you can. Don’t try to control too much from beyond the grave.

Ironically, what’s being said about these current French architects is similar in tone to what some critics said about Viollet-le-Duc, the bold mid-nineteenth century architect who was commissioned at the age of 30 to restore the neglected cathedral and replace the old spire. From Stephen Murray, a medieval art historian, professor emeritus at Columbia University ... The audacity! What was once audacious and egotistical is now tradition and defines historical integrity and what is now audacious and egotistical will someday be tradition and come to define historical integrity. Thus is the evolving cycle of humanity and art. The irony is that traditionalists and proponents of historical integrity would choose as their standard a spire created by someone who at the time was accused of presumptuousness and ego in not adhering more devoutly to a strict vision rather than his more contemporary sense of what that original vision could have been with current resources and awareness.

It actually seems pretty straightforward. Here are your words, rather easy to understand: And, speaking of ad hominem, what would you call attributing such an unstated motive to architects talking about various ideas for a new spire? I’m questioning both your mischaracterization or at least presumptuous characterization of their motives and your insistence not on historical integrity but historical fidelity.

I was referring to PN’s demographic which, judging from the names and pictures people supply, is overwhelmingly older and male. Integrity would involve reading carefully what these architects have actually said and not projecting motives onto them that are not clearly stated, let alone hinted at. Why not start there if integrity is so important to you? Or does this integrity only extend to the physical design of iconic structures? And regarding such structures, is it a lack of integrity that would cause someone to be excited about modernizing? Are there not other possibilities which integrity might suggest be considered?

Only in part. The rest of your point was to address a negative, cynical, and self-interested side of that artistic arrogance. Whereas the point of my response was to address the more positive, inspirational side of artistic arrogance, or at least so-called arrogance. Thankfully, it’s rare that artists are “allowed” and not “allowed” to do what they want in terms of their own takes on what’s come before. And these architects aren’t destroying the Notre Dame spire. The fire did that. And, btw, there are plenty of traditionalists who would accuse Switched-On Bach of destroying Bach. Without foundation, however. You’re entitled to your reading, of course, but your reading shows a sad degree of cynicism that sees drooling for self aggrandizement instead of what’s actually being expressed, which is excitement about possibilities and nothing that even hints at personal immortality, a far cry from your unfortunately and unnecessarily sinister read.

Arrogance and art often go hand-in-hand, Luckily, Stieglitz was arrogant enough to think that photography could hang side by side with paintings in museums. And then he had the further arrogance to think that he could reject the Pictorialist style that got photos into museums and explore photography for its own unique qualities rather than those more traditional qualities he’d originally drawn out. Luckily, Douglas Sirk was inspired enough to think he could take two great John Stahl films of the 30s, Imitation of Life and Magnificent Obsession, and reimagine them in 50s potboiler melodramatic technicolor to make two gorgeous, lush movies, which I imagine people with more traditional sensibilities resented. I suppose there was some degree of arrogance in Wendy Carlos reimagining Bach on an electronic synthesizer and I’m sure there are curmudgeons around the globe who find it distasteful. And I wonder what some thought of Picasso for daring to have enough arrogance to include a cubist Pietà in Guernica? Heavens to Betsy. I’m not sure Macron put it as artfully as he might have, in that I don’t think most architects would think in terms of creating something “more” beautiful than the original, a needlessly competitive way to see what happens when artists build on the past with more contemporary approaches to iconic images and structures. I’m thinking that most of the artists I referenced weren’t trying to improve on the past but instead using their imagination and skill to re-envision something that had already shown great power. Artists tend not to take hands off approaches. As to this being a photo site, I’ve got plenty of pictures posted in threads throughout the site and often illustrate points I make with them, but I certainly don’t feel in any way obliged to do that, especially in a casual conversation thread. I’ve actually not taken a photo of the new Bay Bridge yet, though I suppose you could google it and find one that shows the new span and the old span and how well the more contemporary design of the Oakland side harmonizes with the much more traditional design of the San Francisco side. I could also take some pics at Grace Cathedral, the majestic French gothic revival centerpiece of SF’s Nob Hill, complete with a contemporary AIDS chapel heavily influenced by Keith Haring’s design, but I wouldn’t want anyone here to faint from the sacrilege of it all!

Well, here’s a quote from each of the architects in the article which seem to show just what I said, thoughtfulness and variety. Now, what would be great, JDM, is if you could highlight the words spoken by these architects that you found to be “drooling over the opportunity to immortalize themselves.” Please be specific and reference the particular phrases that are evidence of that intent. This will help us to understand just how you interpret what you read.

LOL! :):):)

PN seems to be the place where older male photographers come to occasionally talk high and mightily about thinking outside the box while worrying endlessly about anything that actually might accomplish that. It now seems like a graveyard of nostalgia for pretty much everything, from gear to vision and style. The “worry” that is so often expressed often boils down to usually be about something simple ... change. For another recent example, read the AI thread. Oh, wait, you already have.

I think a lot of contemporary architects simply see the world differently than the gothic Victorians did. I’m sure some of them drool over their own immortality, some of them are probably negative Nancy cynics as well, but many would have a sincere desire to crown the cathedral with something uplifting and worthy. Two recent renewals to older structures in my home town of San Francisco (where nothing comes close to the age of Notre Dame) are the new span of the Bay Bridge and the recent addition to SFMoMA. Each relates beautifully to the already-existing structure while also being forward-looking and fulfilling a more contemporary aesthetic. Over time, historical integrity recognizes marriages of eras and styles and the present can pay homage to the past by harmonizing its vision with the past without necessarily imitating it. In any case, having read the brief article, none of the architects giving their thoughts on the spire, which were varied and thoughtful, came across as drooling over the chance to immortalize themselves. Not at all.

Now, these are just quotes, suggestions, not proof of anything, not proofs of anything about art. I think facts are important in mathematics and many practical matters. I want to know for a fact the stove is not hot before I let my two-year-old go near it, assuming I’m not into letting her learn this the hard way. I don’t think there are fact-based definitions of art ... or love for that matter. A definition of art masquerading as fact is akin to an oxymoron. Even as I embrace a variety of definitions of art I am aware of them not as facts but as placeholders. Art is, in my opinion, at least in part the future. The future is the unknown. No one who has ever tried to tie down what is art or what ingredients supposedly constitute art hasn’t had the future pull the rug out from under them. Making any ingredient or group of ingredients a necessity for art simply means you’ll be dated in no time.