Otakar Novotný: Notes on Perfect Compositions

All artistic work is twofold; initially, it is rational and utilitarian (the production of clothing and vessels, the construction of shelters, the making of weapons), later it becomes emotional, which on one hand begins in the utilitarian (face painting of warriors intended to instill fear), and on the other hand, is initiative, playful, love-related, and religious, evoked by the mystery of death. Utility meets emotion only when collective work begins and the era of social organizations commences. At that point, between reason and emotion, fine art is born, and between science and religion, music, while between reality and mysticism, lyricism emerges.
The creative process thus arises from a state of lethargy. Provoked by a stimulating emotion, it moves beyond the instinct of crude form and sensual enhancement to logical realization; however, such a synthetic process is not concluded, but rather marks the beginning of the realm of the highest artistic acts. Emotion, a fundamental element, is developed, with evolution accompanied by constant corrections and finalized with such precision that it equates to an unconscious dogma. Creation thus means bringing order to the chaos of initiative ideas. However, someone said: preserving the purity and innocence of the first, surely correct impulse in art is everything. Indeed, it is easy to calculate with forms that are determined by sober static and hygienic formulas, but it is very difficult to grasp the first tremor of the heart and to leave it with the original healthy strength throughout the process of formal elaboration, which gives the product that artistic plus, which is never articulated, but is always felt well.
Material technique, construction, hygiene, and functionality do not determine the development of architecture; it is defined by the evolution of the soul. The fusion of art with science is today proclaimed as an achievement; however, in truth, the fiery art knows nothing of science, and the products of cold rationality will not triumph over the miracles of spontaneous inspiration, just as the force of talent does not ask for technical skill. The logic of the architect-artist is different from that of the engineer-technician; in a dwelling that is not essentially an artistic product, a salon may neighbor a pantry, yet you cannot ideologically connect a cathedral with systematic drainage. Science can, however, serve architecture today just as it can serve criminal inclinations. The leveling scientific morality is only justified when the chaos of individuals arises that are not strong enough to break up religion and philosophy, morality and tradition, and to replace them with a new artistic culture.
Artistic erudition thus gets replaced by logic; the mystical chaos of the Middle Ages, from which such wonders as the Carolingian epic and the legend of the Grail arose, is now equivalent to technical and economic advancements and social achievements, just that it is prematurely replaced by the chaos of organization, artistic culture by speculation, talent by logic.
All turns in all times were caused by emotion, not logic; emotion is also the driving force of all art. Christianity overturned antiquity, the unification of Gothic was dismantled by the impiety of Renaissance aristocracy, which was then brought to an end by another power, the democratic revolution.
No one knows where it is going; neither Alexander nor Napoleon knew that; the sovereign is emotion, and in the impenetrable chance of the meeting of two individuals, there may lie the seed of a world drama. The conflicts of nations, their hatred and wars, originate only from misunderstanding. Therefore, the last, decisive factor in the deepest doubts of the human spirit is not reason, which precisely accumulates these doubts (especially in artistic work), but it is instinct, some experience (the remnants of it) acquired in the primitive man's struggle with the mystery of the universe. The barbaric leaders, who accepted and supported the arts of the subjugated nations, were certainly not driven by political reasons, but by an inner voice of respect.
Let us observe how the two peak artistic periods, antiquity and Gothic, were involved in rational and emotional creation.
The Hellenic soul, practical and reasoning, very little lyrical and not at all mystical, loving precision and order, with a lack of invention, yet very logical and methodical, could not create a new style; however, it manifested itself in the gradual improvement of adopted cultures, in the search for economic processes and rational methods, in the forming of precisely tectonic, academically pure, and refinedly harmonic. And there is in Greek architecture only one passion: that for perfect form, leading equally to generous contrast as well as to the admirable “coziness of deformation” (the inclination of columns, the bending of the architrave, etc.), a passion culminating in the abstract rhythm of buildings without their natural scale. For this formal exclusivity, antiquity cannot be what it was to the Renaissance and the epigonic styles. As long as the motivation of new architecture is spatial creation, to which true antiquity paid very little attention, to that extent the adoration of antiquity is merely formal. On the contrary, from it, we find many beautiful forms, extraordinarily clever ideas, yet few elements that would not today be anachronism. Rome amplified the Hellenic energy, clarity, and continuity of thought. However, intensive recognition of authorities and disciplines, systematic subordination of the individual to the whole, of the worker to the work, and even art itself to the intended effect, all of this actually countered art. Roman architecture is then merely a means to express social perfection. There was certainly a time full of talents, whose technical and formal perfection diverted much energy towards strong effects of grandeur (thermae), yet artistic progress was impossible even if Christianity had not come, initially rejecting many forms of fine art. The ascetic religious emotion of the first Christians (similar to later Protestantism) long resisted art until emotion and talent overcame all rational scruples. The struggle with iconoclasm ended with the victory of the cathedral, disdain for pagan logic led to the destruction of strict ancient forms. Christianity opened ancient wounds caused to man by the primitive struggle with the universe. As the intensity of knowledge grows, so artistic creation (shelter from life and its whims) loses the depth it had in antiquity – and instead, it gains a certain bonhomie and speculative nature. The classic, strong, and solid spirit long resisted chaotic and hysterical assaults, only to fall with Gothic. What we think was only rational, calculated, constructed in Gothic is merely a means to artistically express the powerful movement of the soul; the logical system of construction is only the foundation for a supralogical, transcendental goal. However, in antiquity, the goal is already the simple expression of every constructive process, form-wise certainly perfect and noble. The conceptual confusion thus brings us closer to Gothic; not only that. Gothic resolves, in the sense of contemporary desires, space; to it, Rek felt no obligations whatsoever; his architecture was almost purely external; from the columns, beams, and tympanum, a certain plastic rhythm develops with constructive logic, yet elementary architecture is not achieved. This principle, although very faded, characterizes the Renaissance, which prematurely lulled humanity, amidst struggle and unease.
Renaissance humanism was the greatest transgression against the freedom of the artistic spirit.
At the moment when the eruptively artistic heart blossomed into the astonishing flower of transcendental art, a rational reaction occurs; humanity, insufficiently mature, cannot cope with the chaos of the soul and erects political damns to the most nonsensical and passionate impulses of social renewal and logical self-discovery.
Renaissance distinctly separates dream from action, represses emotion, and supports reason. Behind the Renaissance stand the names Copernicus, Columbus, and Luther, Brunelleschi and Michelangelo, more than enough to leave no doubt about its scientific rationality. The Renaissance architect bears the responsibility that, with his humanistic refinement, subtlety, and delicacy, diverts artists from the sensitive task directly to formal results, allowing for the death of the pure heart and its replacement solely by a calculating mind. The arts are abandoned by religion and thus lose all supports that condition them.
It is understandable that Florence, the city of bankers and the Decameron, could have been a suitable birthplace for upheaval. It is understandable that the early Renaissance with Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, socially and religiously distinct from Gothic, must reject Gothic forms, not comprehending their emotional relationships with their reason; the same Renaissance, which believed Gothic to be rational!
It was undoubtedly an extraordinarily intense life when it allowed for the birth of universal talents in the span of two or three generations: Giotto (thinking already Renaissance) and Orcagna, Brunelleschi and Alberti, Leonardo and Michelangelo. For Renaissance artists, it mattered little to care about craft and technique, which were family traditions. It was enough to inherit artistic inclination and, through logical development and education, “genius” emerged.
With the cessation of struggle, the spiritual level drops. The revolution lured many souls again with its principles of collective equality and individual freedom, but in art, it remained conservative. Rejecting the church style, it fell into Roman antiquity, from which it did not emerge until distorted by Romanticism and weakened by sentimentality. This destroyed architecture as well, so there was no style, no strength of thought, no prerequisites for talent. The field of dilettantism opened up.
Antiquity ― Middle Ages ― Renaissance.
Greek culture sought the highest perfection in plastic formation; it succeeded to the smallest subtleties, but thus it closed itself off; it has no possibility for progress and development. In Rome, the mystical Gothic soul already intersects with it, traceable in early Christianity; the formalist perfection of antiquity clashed with the mysticism of the Northerner, cold reason with rich emotion, which in the Renaissance ends in a temporary defeat of emotion. The fault lies in a lack of intelligence, crushed by superstition, despotism of the nobility and robbery. However, since the Renaissance drowned in antiquity, in that antiquity which the Middle Ages far surpassed not through the intensity of correct life, but through the strength of passions, which is expressed in terrible religious battles, therefore it is a downfall. The Renaissance is the awakening from the beautiful dream of the Middle Ages, which, albeit not fully able to unite inspiring emotion with subordinate technique, believed that the mysticism of ideas along with the passion's heat would bring about harmony, and which perished precisely because of this premature demand. Fearing a similar fate, the Renaissance separated science from religion and paid for it with the loss of art, which distinctly divided itself into decorative and pure, living eclectically. The tradition of great culture was thus not lost in the nineteenth century, but rather it vanished with the fall of Gothic.
Gothic left the field open: it wanted to express the religious states of the soul in stone and achieved impressive cathedrals in the meantime; it sought to express the ideological relationships of the present through matter, posed a question that can be resolved in any era, and managed to bring all artistic elements into activity with great expansion, yet it did not reach their most intense fusion.
Yet this is how talent differs from logic, art from science: that it “misses what it seems to be attempting”. It suggests a third dimension, despite its means being two-dimensional (painting), that plastic forms project into the flat effects of silhouettes (sculpture), that the impression of constructive necessity is marred by a higher idea of the whole, that the notion of organic growth is limited by it, yet simultaneously denied by it. So it is in architecture.
Contemporary architecture is a reflection of analyzing purpose and technique and will begin to deserve the title of art only when a form arises from synthesis, which is governed by relationships to nature and society, harmony and science, yet is given by the relationship to emotion. To restrict oneself in architecture to lifeless doctrines means to set oneself an unnecessarily insurmountable pons asinorum. Parker rightly asserts that “opinions still retain some life as long as the reasons that gave them life have long since fallen.” Persisting in a lifeless dogma is very dangerous; the sterility of the artistic spirit precisely indicates its unartistic nature. Local and temporal geniuses have all succumbed to this.
It is not possible for architecture-art to be satisfied with the results of technical rules; the ultimate goal must be a broad style, whose necessity must be felt as instinctively as any beginning of inner artistic movement. However, a weak thread weaves through architectural creation: the logical law of exact sciences. Blondel's demand that the heights of arches, the lightness of construction, and the simplicity and regularity of forms be drawn from Gothic is superficial; Violet-le-Duc's and Semper's doctrine about material is superficial; Ruskin's painful sentimentalism is superficial, because they all distinguish too much between the internal, instinctive necessity of expression and formalization due to their inability to substantiate architectural creation through the necessary understanding of the spiritual life of the era.
If we want to make architecture one of the nine disciplines, from which it was excluded by either Capella or Cassiodorus (alongside medicine), then indeed we are on the best path, giving it merely dry scientific knowledge. However, if we want to make it art, then science can only be a rough prerequisite, worthy of further intellectual processing. Moreover, science can give very little to architecture-art. It concerns colors, anatomy, and perspective for painting and sculpture; geometry and statics are not enough for the grouping of architecture, painting, and sculpture into an indivisible artistic whole. There would need to be a scientific development of the laws of contrast, surfaces, and spaces, silhouettes, and laws of scale. But can architecture truly be a creative art, as it is more of an inventive art than painting and sculpture, which ultimately only imitate? Architecture works, besides that, with artistic elements (lines, surfaces, and spaces) that are geometrically fundamental and simple, which Plato already declared to be eternally and absolutely beautiful.
The voices of the heart can indeed only be respected when thinking is organized. Confucius, this leathery philosopher of reason, himself says: When things are known, consciousness is fulfilled; when consciousness is thorough, thoughts are sincere; when sincere, the heart is pure, and only then is a person educated. It can be added: only then happy if he feels in his creations his strength and dominance. Reason is conditioned by external influences, observation, and knowledge; it does not therefore express the strength of the individual, but the power of the environment and therefore cannot internally satisfy itself.
Art cannot be compared to science any more than in criticism aesthetics to archaeology. And yet critics-scientists could and should have much influence, many unfortunate followers. True talents, however, were immune and owe nothing to them. Much is also attributed to the rapid pace of technical development; simple reason prevents talent from dispersing through comprehending and forming timeless problems, ephemeral buildings, and the most commonplace utilitarian objects; reason takes care of it itself, quickly, simply, and reliably, what would emotion pay for with suffering. Therefore, it would be understandable today to harbor doubt as to whether something new can still be achieved. Antiquity knew this skepticism accompanied there by resignation, today, however, it faces immense energy. In this lies the difference; in this lies the reason why antiquity perished and today will live.
What is the influence of race?
The Renaissance did not impose in its origin formal possibilities but humanistic tendencies, which the Germanic race could not separate from art and therefore rejected Gothic so easily. In Italy, where Gothic never took root, the introduction of the Renaissance was a natural succession; in Germany, England, and, indeed, in our own country, it was a shock, to which for five centuries we succumbed. The Roman race with antiquity, the Germanic with Gothic reached a pinnacle. The circle of history, which is clearly a law, will now give validity to the Slavic element, which, it seems, has been reserved for creating a new style of such quantity as antiquity or the Middle Ages, yet would merge the qualities of both periods. The balance, classicism of ancient life and the combative spirit of the intellectual struggles of Gothic will be united; the rational knowledge of science and tradition (great tradition, ending with Gothic) will combine with the lush and predatory instinct of a healthy and vital race, which will sovereignly dominate both elements and take a unified stance of a deeper worldview.