• FMF linkup page :: less
Less is more! According to mid-last-century Bauhaus design sensibility. From Bauhaus to our house, many of us still prefer clean, spare, minimal styles. Some hanker after entirely neutral colors; others insist on a few bright splashes. That minimalist North German/Nordic Scandinavian style never ever completely quits.
Less is more? My header photograph is a mid-20th century building designed by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, with the glass curtain-wall front that reflects highlights of its surroundings, that more and more began to highlight the downtown of almost every city everywhere.
Less is more? The Reformers removed paintings and statues from church buildings, sometimes whitewashed interior church walls, not so much because of visual aesthetics but because they feared idol worship. They imagined people zooming in on a pretty painting or picture – a.k.a. golden calf, worshiping it, and breaking the first commandment to an extreme extent. As a result, music became the protestant art form, but happily, these days most protestant churches use color, pattern, paintings, and other aspects of the visual arts to enhance worship and help interpret scripture. Rather than staying with less, they wisely added more.
The Bauhaus was very much continuous with the logos / word = source + immanence that drove the emphasis on scripture during the magisterial Reformation, the Word that remains central to protestant theology—and identity! And like the 16th century Reformation, the Bauhaus was a creature of northern Europe—not southern.
Less is more? Many peeps caught up in the uncertainties of this century – especially related the current global pandemic – have decided more is more; less won't do at all. Both virtual and actual retailers have had a run on basic supplies to such a crazy extent many who need them can't get them.
• Gropius glass curtain-wall building image via px fuel carries a no copyright reserved CC0 license.
They swept away the statuary;
ReplyDeletewhitewashed walls sufficed.
Did this severe itinerary
draw closer to the Christ,
or was there something that was lost
in the minimal translation,
something that addressed the cost
of ransom and salvation,
something far too grand and vast
through words to understand,
and thus, perhaps, must be well-cast
in an artist's hand.
We are to the heart of God bespoke
in the exuberance of baroque.
#9 at FMF this week.