Saturday, April 21, 2007

"Form Follows Function" and "Ornamentation is a Crime". These were the catch phrases of modernism that led directly from the Bauhaus to our current age of characterless products and cold, clinical design. You might be interested in the saws at left. The photo at the top shows in descending order a common carpenter's saw from the 19th century, a saw from the early part of the 1900's and one from the 1960's when the dearth and death of ornamentation intruded to the core of American craftsmanship.

The photo at left shows a close-up detail of the earliest saw. It is from an age that valued both ornamentation and skilled craftsmanship. You might wish to call those days the golden age of the hand.

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