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STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER~
Gallery of Everyday A11 by Elizabeth McCausland 38
Ralph Samuels
Julius ShuJman
architecture
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ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE
ART
Lewis Mumford, in a recent issue of The Saturday Review of Litera-
ture, wasn't mincing words when he expressed his deep-felt horror
at what is now being done, or not being done, about the atom bomb.
In understandable alarm he shouted: "GENTLEMEN: YOU ARE
MAD!" It was Henry Miller, however, who anticipated, prognos-
ticated, and raised the flags of danger long before the existence of
the atom bomb was made known to the citizens of this democracy.
Let's Talk Wiring Ever since Miller returned to America at the outbreak of the war
he has been writing things about his native land, and in the pro-
cess he has disturbed a lot of people--people who do not wish their
right hand to know what their left hand is doing.
The growth in the use of electricity Evidently, Henry Miller has bared more sociological and psycho-
in the home has been steady and amaz- logical wounds than any other contemporary writer. It is not neces-
sary to look far for the reasons which have gained him such a
ing. But, average wiring capacity has distinction. Any of his recent books give plenty of clues, but
never quite been able to catch up, and particularly The Air-Conditioned Nightmare.* Miller has a way of
digging around in our backyards, our attics, and our history which
few homes have truly en joyed the most is not in the books. He also uncovers cesspools and expounds causes.
efficient and convenient use of ap- He tells you to your face things you would just as soon forget
(if indeed you have ever so much as admitted them.) And alas!
pliances and lighting equipment. He sometimes tells you things which are better left unsaid, which
Now, as we are about to begin a new are trite, or foolish, or off on a tangent. But it is better to have
non-sense with sense, than to have no sense at all.
era in building, there is an opportunity Most everyone knows that there are plenty of things wrong in
to "start from scratch"- to provide the world. War, greed, hate, poverty, injustice, stupidity, fatuous-
ness, pride, ignorance-whatever they may be, we are pretty well
complete electrical adequacy for homes aware of our sins. The trouble with Henry Miller is that he wants
of the future. something done about them. And right now! And that's how so
many toes get stepped on. That's why some of the gentle readers
These homes, from year to year, will find him depressingly pessimistic, while the more robust (the ideal-
demand an ever expanding list of ap- ists, perhaps) find inspiration, courage, and strength as he goes
about calling a spade a spade. It is also why the comfortably en-
pliances-appliances which can pro- trenched !iterators' reactions can be epitomized in one such critic's
vide satisfactory and economical ser- hysterical battlecry: "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" pathetically tem-
vice, only if the wiring system is ade- pered in conclusion by the plea: "Miller, stay away from my
lamp."
quate for the job. Yes, Miller has a way of making people squirm. He would like
them to squirm and writhe until they picked themselves up out
Make sure each house you plan wi 11 of the mud. He has the impatience of a man who knows that it is
be modern, electrically, for years to already late-very late. At the very outset of his cross-country
come by specifying: meanderings (America was not yet in the war) he found a large
number of the principals of THE nightmare already on the stage.
The atomic nightmare is but the last (or the next to the last)
l . Wiring of sufficient size. sequel to the nightmares which Miller endured. Can we call this
2. Enough convenience outlets for future thing hate or cynicism which impells him to cry out as if to say:
"Wake up America! It's time to stump the experts!" In our hearts
appliance and lighting needs. we too know those nightmares of the workers slums erupting like
3. Enough circuits to distribute the elec- cankerous sores on the fringed industrial web. One-third of the
trical load properly. nation ill-fed, ill-housed, and all the while salesmen overhead in
planes shuttling to and from their gleaming air-conditioned sky-
scrapers. Miller sees this as raw and festering wounds, epitomized
The house that meets these basic re- by lettering on the side of a dilapidated dwelling: "GOOD NEWS!
quirements of adequate wiring, will GOD IS LOVE!" He lived the nightmare of the poor, of the im-
prisoned, of the halt the lame and the blind; of the Negro and the
provide better living for its owners, and Jew and the American Indian witnessing the havoc wrought upon
will prove worthy of its architect. a great land. He also experienced the nightmare of the creative man,
the painters, the musicians, the writers-marveling that they were
able to survive at all. He even tasted of a Hollywood soiree, and
Northern California shared with countless aspirants the quixotic whim of a Guggenheim
board of examiners.
Eleetrieal Bureau This feverish account is scarcely the issue of a man given to hallu-
cinations. There is too much sober sense intertwined. Who, today,
1355 Market Street is to pass on sanity as we prepare to make a laboratory out of the
mid-Pacific? Miller, at the outset, admits he may be disillusioned:
San Francisco 3, California "I had the misfortune to be nourished by the dreams and visions of
great Americans-the poets and seers," he writes. "Some other
breed of man has won out. This world which is in the making fills
me with dread. I have seen it germinate; I can read it like a blue-
print. It is not a world I want to live in. It is a world suited for
monomaniacs obsessed with the idea of progress-but a false prog-
ress, a progress which stinks. It is a world cluttered with useless
objects which men and women, in order to be exploited and de-
•The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, by Henry Miller.
Published by New Directions, 1945; Price $3.50.
continued on page 9
ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE-Vol. 63, No. 3-Publishecl monthly at 3305 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles 5, California, by John D. Entenza. Established 1911. Yearly subscrip.
tion price $3.50. Entered as second-class matter January 29, 1935, at the Office, Los Angeles, California, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
MARCH 19~6 5
ART
SAN FRANCISCO NOTES
tion to convey. Much better are his things in which the emphasis
is on color and composition rather than form.
Maxim Kopf has a very large show of representational paintings,
landscapes, somewhat in the manner of Gauguin, from the South
Seas, large portraits, of Paul Robeson as Othello, of Vilhjalmur
The Tenth Annual Drawing and Print Exhibition of the San Fran- Stefansson, of elderly actresses, large religious compositions, and
cisco Art Association, at the San Francisco Museum through March several New England landscapes.
tenth, is extremely large and heterogeneous, styles ranging from The City of Paris Gallery is showing three well known local
photographic realism to extreme abstraction, with the abstractionists artists, Bill Gaw, Leah Hamilton, and Hamilton Wolf. Bill Gaw
somewhat in the majority. Due probably to the size of the show, is dipping his toes in the current wave of abstract experiment. In
museum fatigue sets in rapidly; and an adequate review would make addition to several of his magnificent flower paintings there are
quite a volume. in this show various results of his new approach, mostly, so far,
There are entries from all parts of the United States, prints by all objectively seen elements somewhat rearranged; as in the Abalone
methods including the comparatively new silk screen process, draw- Tree, realistic shells hanging on a limbless trunk in a partly ab-
ings done with, or on, practically everything." Altogether, although stract setting; or arrangements of pieces of pattern in design.
the show is less unified than usual, it presents a more representative Leah Hamilton has been moving steadily toward less and less
cross section of what is actually being done in art than most of objective painting for some time, simplifying and eliminating until
the annuals. Probably this is the result of the two jury ~ystem color and shape, while used quite abstractly, do not eliminate the
used for selection, one jury of artists and the other of laymen. "story" but rather intensifies its subjectivity. Here she shows some
Quality, also, varies greatly, but there are excellent examples of of her newest pictures and a few of her earlier landscapes as well.
almost every school of thought from academism to surrealism, Hamilton Wolf seems to be progressing in richness of design and of
inclusive. "paint quality." He shows several intricate and satisfying abstrac-
Prizes, however, all went to either abstrac- tions and semi-abstractions, and a monumental seated woman done
tions or decidedly non academic pictures; much more simply than is usual with this artist.
the Purchase Prize, to Eleanor Coen of Chi· -DOROTHY PUCCINELLI CRAVATH
cago, for her color lithograph, Conversation
by the Lagoon; Artists Fund Prize to Edgar
Taylor of B'erkeley for a crayon drawing,
Scooters. Honorable Mentions, Residuum, by
George Harris, and an ink drawing by Lu-
cretia Van Horn, both abstractions, and a
rather surrealist serigraph by Edward Lan-
don, That Which We Mourn ; On Okinawa.,
ink and crayon by Charles Safford, and a
lithograph by Charles White called Awaitirig
His Return, both done in very angular style
with strong emotional content.
The Graphic show could very well be used as
a demonstration of the variety of media
available to artist print makers; but to add to
the information about prints, in the study
,:?allery there is a large explanatory exhibit
of the various stages in the making of color
reproductions by several processes, including
collotype and woodblock, showing all the
stages of printing, the individual color plates
and the finished product, and, also the orig-
inal paintings.
There is, further, a one man show of seri-
::?;raphs by Herman Warsager, one of the orig-
inal developers of silk screen nrinting for
use in the fine arts. His woodblocks. shown KEEPS OUT
also, have a remarkable depth of color and MOISTURE
a solidity not usually found in this medium,
due, according to his own explanation, to IROWNSKIN stands up IROWNSKIN keeps out IROWNSKIN resists ver·
many overprintings of cool and warm hues~ to stress and strain. It moisture. It is laminated, min and other insects.
he has experimented in black and white prints S-T·R··E·T·C·H·E·S with tough kraft sheets Because it is imprcg·
also. because it isCAtf EO impregnated with bitu· nated with bituminous
It will not shrink or minous compound and compound and asphalt,
Edward McNear shows gouaches, mostly land-
tear. It "stays put." bonded with asphalt. it also resists fungus.
scapes, in soft yet strong colors, objectively
handled. lllOWNSKIN VAPORHAL building paper ptotects walls and ceilings
Many San Francisco artists have been using from the moisture molecules which move from hot to cold areas.
a mixed tempera underpainting and over It stops moisture for keeps and before damage is done. When IVS
glaze technique with good results. The De is instaHed, it gives everlasting protection. Its resiliency prevents pull-·
Young Museum is showing nice examples of ing away from nails and corners. Ask your dealer about STANDARD
this method done by Lenard Kester, who cer- IROWNSKIN, IROWNSKIN VAPORSEAL and ECONOMY IROWNSKIN.
tainly seems to know his stuff. These pic-
tures are mostly small and very lively land-
scapes with ancient trees done in a flurry
of glaze, scumble and palette knife techni·
que that is very effective, although there
also are beaches with figures, and landscapes
without trees, that are equally satisfying.
Several portraits of clowns and such seem
rather mawkish by comparison.
Francis de Erdeley at the same Museum has
many carefully labored drawings, mostly of
people, in black and white, which seem just
Mt\RCH 1946
souA~~ tl
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8 ARTS AND ARC HI TECT URE
MUSIC
Los Angeles is a city of small cultural islands surrounded by vacant
lots. During the month of January this associate editor turned a
music critic and paddled his canoe among the islands to discover
the various accomplishments of the natives. His anthropological
report, begun last month , continues :
January 20, al the Wilshire-Ebell Theatre, Werner Janssen cond uctPd
the Janssen Symphony in a program fit to shake the complacency
out of all who for the first time on this especial occasion came
uptown to hear them. The house was filled for the first non-radio
performance, played by Johana Harris, of a piano concerto origin-
ally written by her husband Roy for broadcast by Paul Whitema n.
Mr. Janssen's first appearance bore out mos.t presuppositions. Th e
angular agony of uncouth and violent gestures with which he led a
Attractive
grouping routine playing of the national anthem reached a climax, when ]1 <>
f o r informaf appeared to be driving his fists through the floor to no mu r P
relaxation . result than a couple of loud thumps from the drums. The audiernT
expected the worst of the Tragic Overture by Brahms. They heard
instead a controlled, teclmically finished, and well sustained r ead-
ing, a quality of performance maintained throughout the wl1olr
of a long and more than usually exacting evening.
The Piano Concerto by Roy Harris introduced to Los Angeles a
charming and competent pianist, who has also the di stinction of
being the compo,er's wife. They are expecting their second ch il· l
in March. Johana Harris played with crisp control ~ work a:->
delightful and technically competent in construction as it is \111 -
expected in eff ecl. Critics who passed it over for s11perficialit'
failed to keep in mind that it was written , like the famous Rhapsorl:r
in Blue, for a particular purpose and occasion. Modernists, whn
prefer to be puzzled and astounded. while insisting that a usef 11 l
structure should be functional , failed lo observe how effectively tlw
overlaid rh ythms of the first movement display and trans.fon n
the continuousl y reiterated little theme, baffling th e head and foot
tappers who would try to keep it in its place, and with what func-
tional accuracy the multiple tiny rhythmic counters make their
points. The concerto rises through a fast-slow-fast alternation to
a second slow movement for piano solo, polyphonically moving
through simple successive chords without passing notes, character-
Co z y c o r n e r istic of the composer's growing artistic maturity and finesse. This
orron g emenf theme is then treated in two variations for piano and orchestra,
for th e smart the first beautifully altering the original theme by the addition
cocktail room.
of passing notes as a new melody. The variations lead directly into
a rather disappointing cadenza, which is followed by the co n-
cluding fast movement. Rhumba and samba rhythms (3 plus .3
plus 2 over 4) give the texture a free art.iculation. The concerto
rewards the musicianship more than the vanity of the solo player.
For those who prefer to be noticed there are concertos by Khatchatu-
rian or Martucci, put together in the tradition of that period when
the efficiency of a machine was often appraised by the amount
of noise it made.
The Sibelius Third Symphony, contrary to the program annotator 's
vague description, was composed after a trip across the English
channel in a fog. In Jhe tradition of Mendelssohn's voyage music it
glitters with the sun upon the waters, darkening in the second move-
ment under the slow creeping of the fog. It is the least substantial
but not the least competent of the composer's larger works. The
crisp attack and dynamic responsiveness of the playing would have
done credit to any orchestra in the land. A little Sinfonia by
Goy s etting
Friedemann Bach for two flutes and strings again showed firm or-
WAND
for o cheer - chestral handling, although one could properly object to the fortis-
ful breakfast simo-dimuendo at each entrance of the sufficiently noticeable theme.
or luncheon . The second major event of the evening was a gr·oup of interludes
and two soprano solos, alternating singing and sprechstimme, from
the opera Wozzeck by Alban Berg. The music uses the twelve-tone
W~llOW
technic as well as the Schoenbergian division into separate formal
continued on page l 0
ART tion, humiliation, and ridicule. He can earn a living at his calling
1·0 11ti11uPd from page 4 only by producing the kind of art which he despises. If he is a
graded, are taught to regard as useful. The dreamer whose dream~ painter the surest way for him to survive is to make stupid portraits
are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. Whatever does not of even more stupid people, or sell his services to the advertising
lend itself to being bought and sold, whether in the realm of things, monarchs who . . . have done more to ruin art than any other
ideas, principles, dreams or hopes, is debarred. In this world the single factor . . . . Take the murals which adorn the walls of our
poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man public buildings-most of them belong in the realm of com-
of vision a criminal." mercial art. Some of them, in technique and conception, are even
Eager to be rightly understood Miller later explains: "Since below the resthetic level of the Arrow collar artist. The great con-
I am not of Indian, Negro, or Mexican descent I do not derive any cern has beell to please the public, a public whose taste has been
vengeful joy in delineating this picture of the white man's civiliza- vitiated by Maxfield Parrish chromos and posters conceived with
tion. I am a descendent of two men who ran away from their native only one idea, 'to put it over.' "
land Lecause they did not wish to become soldiers. My descendents, All well and good. But where Miller's conception of art does not
ironically enough, will no longer be able to escape that duty: the measure up to his ethical insight is when he regards the artist as
whole white world has at last been turned into an armed camp." a special kind of man. If, with Coomaraswamy, he can invert this
Among the artists who read The Air-Conditioned Nightm. are to the acceptance of every man a special kind of artist, it is possi-
there will be those whose toes are stepped on and those who say ble that he may attain a more cohesive philosophical whole. The
"Amen." Miller writes at considerable length about artists in this latter concept would no doubt help him to place more correctly
book, and in doing so presents an awkward contradiction. Himself the hideous products which he finds on every side, including "art."
a watercolorist, more expressionist in inclination than otherwise, It would also help form the tangible link between art (which al-
he is apt to measure art from the point of view of painting for ready he knows must be related to life) and the sterile lives of the
painting's sake, or art for the self's sake. But this is loo harsh an "exploited and degraded." Perhaps it is too much to expect of one
evaluation in a way, because Miller also is able to speak about man, particularly a Henry Miller. But in spite of his blind spots
the larger aspects of art, recognizing its relatedness to life and the he is among the few who yet remain to tell us of the heritage that
importance of its function far better than many who expound on might be ours. If he finds the "American type par excellence" with
art alone, whether abstract or representational. Miller is capable of "not a speck of human dignity left. The white worm squirming
demonstrating not infrequently that he knows only too well what in the vise of respectability," it is not with malice that he speaks hut
is wrong with so much art today. He quotes one of his acquaint- with love _a nd belief and hope that we might wake up before it i~
ances as saying: " 'Pictures in an exhibition hall are like wares on too late. "Amazing how men can be trained to kill in all kinds of
a bargain counter. ... Pictures have no place today in the home- weather. Almost as intelligent as horses," he says in an aside. A
the houses are not right.' " man does not turn a phrase of this sort to be funny.
Now these are words which won't be liked particularly by a lot of Miller lays his cards on the table: "I look upon the world not as a
people who paint pictures. Nor will the host of American-scene partisan of this country or that but as an inhabitant of the globe."
painters relish Miller's attitude toward the "sterile stylizations of a No inhabitant of the world could have anything to do with an atom·
Grant Wood or the convulsive, Neanderthal efforts of a Thomas bomb. And so it is not surprising that Miller feels "Tibet . . . to
Benton." But his sympathy for the true artist is never lacking. be the countersign for a world-wide community who have this
Bitterly he observes that "art comes last in the things of life which much in common at least-they know that there is something more
preoccupy us. The young man who shows signs of becoming an ·to life than is summed up in the empirical knowledge of the high
artist is looked upon as a crackpot, or else a lazy, worthless en- priests of logic and science." Believing thus, it is likewise not
cumbrance. He has to follow his inspiration at the cost of starva- surprising that he has found men who "like Briff ault, the author of
Drawer
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MUSIC
1·011t i111wd from pa gr 8
built-itt telepltone music , which she sang with precise intonation and emotional effec-
tiveness. Unfortunately for the dramatic sense her sprechstim m<'
outlets ore inexpe11Sive" in no way differed from her singing, so that the contrast between
thought felt inwardly and thought spoken was not rendered. The
program concluded with another operatic excerpt, the lurid Dance
of th e Seven Veils from the opera Salome by Strauss. The spirit,
attack , and finely co ncerted playing of this orchestra testify to the
A plan that includes built-in tele- admirable leadership of Mr. Janssen, whose devotion to mu sic is
phone facilities is practical for shown by th<; interesting development of its programs.
even modest building budgets. Monday evening, Januar y 21, in the \Vilshire-Ebell Theatre Richard
Conduit installed during con- Buhlig began the cycle of seven recitals, sponsored by Evenings on
struction adds the Roof in collaboration with the Music Guild, during which he
little to build- will play for the second time in Los Angeles the 32 Beethoven
sonatas. It is hard to helieve that a pianist of such intensive powers
ing cost . . . and enhances future
as Buhlig revealed in the fir st Beethoven cycle two years ago
value. Even though only one co uld actually have grown in technique, imagination, and creative
telephone is needed immedi- energy since that time. The fact is that he has grown. After the
ately, others may be added usual libation to the gods of a first sorrata, opus 10:1, poured out
later without tearing up the to relieve his extreme beginning ten sion, Buhlig received his re-
ward of in spiration i n a transfiguring penetration of the deliberately
flooring or bringing wire in
formal Sonata, opns 22. This sonata, ·which the composer wrote to
along base.boards. Cl Your show what he could do in the pol itest manner of Clementi, is
clients will approve your u ually played for charm. It is con idered dull- but not as Buhlig.
foresight in planning built- revealing the hidden inward demonic substance, chose to play it.
Such revelation does not please a11 listeners. There are those who
prefer to be bored in the tradition rather than reborn in the sub-
stance.
in telephone outlets.You are
With the third sonata, the D minor, opus 31 :2, Buhlig entered into
welcome to call on our Ar- undeniable g reatness. Formerly I have disagreed with his playing
chitects' and Builders' Serv- of this sonata, but this time I was convinced. The final work of the
ice for any needed help evening, the Sonata opus 53 ( W aldstcin), overwhelmed any remain-
at no cost. i 11g doubt s concerning the supreme greatness of Buhlig as a Beetho-
ven pianist. American audiences are inclined to regard the physica l
competence of an exact reading of the notes as proof of good per-
formance. Such physical competence, as Schnabel recently remarked ,
Southern California Telephone Company has little to do with the demands of music. A concert performance, if
it is to be more than the routine affair required by the impresario 's
business, should be an extraordinary occasion both for the performer
and for hi s audience. A recital by Buh lig grows upon the listener
like a religious experience, like a mind questing through the failures
of circumstance the timeless moment of a unique illumination. The
desire is neither hedonistic nor sensuous but deliberately and vol-
untarily religious, a conviction of order underlying chaos and that
such conviction is order in spiritual endurance. The technica l
mastery by which Buhlig made of the running line a measureless} y
MARCH 1946 11
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MARCH 1946 15
MUSIC
continued from page 12
ance of the old true Schnabel style, the sinuous and flexible line
lyrically lying with the measure, making strict time a counterpoint.
It was as if the sun had burst through a damp darkness. But the
playing of the Mozart C minor Sonata, without the Fantasy, brought
back murky obscurity and in addition a mannered and artificial
interpretation unlike anything one had ever heard from Schnabel in
Depattment. the past. Here and also in the Diabelli V ari.ations it was as if the
l E tate L oan music had su gared in the playing, becoming granular in texture and
• Out Rea s d iot new con-
. the deman unexpectedl y sweet. Again and again he began in his old manner
anticipating d to handle your and then wandered, using an extravagant pianissimo and a s/orzando
. . prepare followed by an abrupt pause that made no point. Yet the vast genius
struction. lS "th the greatest
l . f ons w 1 of the music was not lost, for Schnabel's playing, though weak in
loan aPP lCa l ·ce takes cate comparison with his great recital of last season , still stood head and
d Our serv1 shoulders aboYe the generality of pianists. For years he has lavished
possible spee . ·1 problems-en· the hest of his loving devotion and workmanship upon these varia-
h usual deta1 d tions, ever with the interest of a ripened understanding exploring
oi all t e d b "lders to e-
h"\ cts an u1 .. newer and more remote experience.
abling arc l e t al construction Wednesday evening, January 30, again presented by the Music
. t" e to ac u Guild , Schnabel returned to the very summit of his skill. Like a
vote their lm
Prospero he summoned airy spirits, repelling earthy and demonic
problems. . t· cations to the elements, so that the usually foreboding andante of the Archduke
d spec11 Trio became in his reading, like the abjuring of "rough magick" in
Bting plans an i our 34 branch The Tempest , a renunciation of the tragic. The spirit of play, which
i y one o is the brighter hemisphere of art, produced an evening of spon-
manager o an "ckcommit-
. ces. He ·11 ge t you a qu1
w1
taneous musicianship. And spontaneous the playing had to be under
oti l . t" n the circumstances. A week before the concert John P ennington, first
ment w1"thou\ obhga lO .
violini st of the London String Quartet, which was to have shared
the evening with Schnabel , was rushed to the hospital for an opera-
tion. In th e emergency the Guild turned to Evenings on the Roof
to borrow the string quartet, consisting of Eunice Shapiro and
Mar vin Limonick, violinists, Virginia Majewski, violist, and Victor
Gottlieb, cellist, whose Roof performances of the Hindemith Third
Quartet and the Beethoven Quartet in A minor. opus 132, have
alread y made musical history in Los Angeles. Adopting the name
the American Quartet, a group designation that has long been
needed , these players had to prepare in less than seven days, inter-
rupted by their own studio activities and by Schnabel's absence to
play a recital in San Francisco, a program including the Mozart
G minor Piano Quartet, the Beethoven A rchdulce Trio, opus 97,
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MARCH 1946 17
and the unfamiliar Dvorak Piano Quintet. The event proved again
that abundant rehearsal is no substitute for ability. The members
of the new American Quartet, though young, are far from inex-
perienced and except the second violinist have been playing together
for several years. They pla yed and Schnabel with them as if the
Philharmonic Auditorium were a homely parlor and there was 110
audience. The affection, the freedom and tl1e exactness, the intimacy
of tonal balance, the exquisite sensibility of rhythm, the incisive
attack, and vi~orous projection were such as are rarely heard in
chamber music. Some listeners cavilled that the pianist played too
loudly, or that the strings were too soft. In fact a fine gradation
was achieved. As a chamber music pianist Schnabel has no rivals.
Compositions in the sty le of the Mozart Piano Quartet and the
Beethoven Prano Trio were written by pianists in a style intended
to give the heavier medium prominence, the piano drawing firm
struct ural outlines, the strings providing a finely graduated color
wash. Instead of choking the pianist and aiming at a double concerto
for strings and continuo, this playing used each instrument in its
natural voice from finest pianissimo to exultant forte; and in the
more largely and loosely organized Piano Quintet a full fortissimo
from all instruments was not too much.
The second Buhlig Beethoven piano sonata recital at the Whilshire-
Ebell Theatre, presented by Evenings on the Roof, was even more
extraordinary, if that is possible, then the first. The nervousness For most effective wood preservation,
of the first evening had vanished, and Buhlig began in his best
form. If a criticism is necessary, one might remark a tendency the chemicals must be forced deep into
in the faster movements of the first three sonatas to let freedom
of movement overrun the placement of the important struck tones the wood. American Lumber & Treating
that mark the motion in its place, causing a gluey effect which
sounds like but is not the result of digital failure to play the
proper notes. Buhlig's Beethoven playing is now such that there is Company obtain this deep penetration
good reason to say, perhaps there has been no better. Technically
he is not and never can become flawless, as I cou Id easily dem- by the vacuum-pressure method in closed
onstrate by showing the innumerable tiny displacements within the
larger wavelike rubato which give each work its unitary wholeness. steel cylinders. Dipping, brushing on,
But the errors this season are so slight, so much a part of the
technical accomplishment, and so ohviously not mistakes tlrnt they
scarcely affect and certainly do not impair the vast technical struc- or other makeshift methods can't begin
tures he realizes by his incredible technique. His technic is not
continued on page 54 to give comparable results. So, when
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together a number of things which occurred at different times. Each boxed idea is separate
but the whole has a unity of conception. By this, Gottlieb seeks to get away from the single
moment in his paintings. He goes through the process of eliminating everything not mean-
ingful to him, keeping only those significant fragments of visual phenomena or memories
scattered in time and space which the pictograph ties into a totality of experience.
As a springboard, Gottlieb often uses a mythological idea rather than a specific object or
thing. He digs in to find pieces which relate to tho idea and express it for him, trying to
keep away from any literal representation of an actual story or the physical appearance of
some classical figure . In utilizing this method of digging out fragments of consciousness he
indulges in a kind of free association, with the result that certain shapes are put down on
the canvas-shapes which may later come to be int-erpreted as specific symbols.
He does not try to arrive at abstraction in the sense of reducing natural objeots to geometric
shapes, but starts with arbitrary shapes, lines, and forms which are elements of painting .
There is no effort to distort or arrive at representation, but if images appear by themselves
they belong to the painting .
Consequently we find suggestions of man, fish, and animals. But Gottlieb does not believe in
the hierarchy of animals or man . In his paintings a circle is just as important 01 a man. A
line may represent man and continue on as just a line with a life of its own and a justifica-
tion for being .
Gottlieb's paintings ore about> people and people's feelings. They are not about inanimate
things, not landscapes, not still lifes. He feels that if he sticks to feelings and they are nor -
mal other people will share t-hem, that one of his functions as an artist is to make the
spectator see the world his way.
MARCH 1946 29
1-NDUSTRIAL DESIGN
... In this series of th ree art icles on industria l design the attempt is made to clarify the form
.. p roblem in the objects of d a ily use t h rough investigat ion o f some basic issues. The f irst
a
..
A
art icle states h ow the rise of industrial ism conditi ons the ind ustr ial desig ner's conception of
form. The second art ic le will dea l with the way in wh ich form is established, which is a
creat ive act performed by t he industria l desig ne r. The th ird article will consider the problem
. . from t he po int of ¥iew of the publi c which uses the products of industrial design .
BY ERNEST K. MUNDT
• Industrial design, as it confronts 1.JS today, is too complex to be Thus, if a cabinet maker had to make a chair, he necessarily
defined briefly. All the objects which surround us in home or thought in terms of wood. He selected a kind with the right proper-
offiCe, in street, factory or farm, form part of it, from razor blade ties. He knew without hesitation the dimensions necessary for a
and bathtub to candlestick and dinner ware, from fountain pen to back to be rigid enough or for a leg to accommodate the necessary
turret lathe, from plow and reaper to automobile and airplane. In- joints. He was unable to exaggerate the curves of an armrest be-
stead of considering the question of what industrial design is as a cause he was well aware of the limitations set by his technique and
whole, when its differentiated aspects are likely to bewilder us, we by the fibre of the wood. He was aware of them because he had
shall try to take a specific point of view, located at the source, tried them out for himself. Through trial and error, checked against
from where things look far simpler. We might take the position the cumulative experience of his trade, he had arrived at that experi-
of the industrial designer. for him, the problem is summed up in ence which- according to Oscar Wilde-is the sum total of our
the question: "What form shall I give to my products and how do I errors, but which, as Schopenhauer has found, has the advantage of
know that the form chosen is adequate?" Seen under this aspect, certitude.
industrial design becomes a form problem.
At first glance this aspect seems to be self-evident and platitudinous; The well understood materials and techniques form the one set
but it may turn out to be the thread of Ariadne leading through of limitations. The other set is contained in the customer f ~r
the labyrinth. If the interpretation of the term form is taken in- whom the work was made. This . customer was a man the crafts-
clusively enough, as by the artist for instance, it has much wider man-designer knew. He knew his family, his social position, his
connotation than mere shape.· Even today, while lacking a unifying creed, his principles of behavior, his likes and dislikes. The man
transcendental idea which pervaded the formal creations of out- who ordered· and the man who made were united in a common inter-
standing periods of culture, form still includes, in addition to shape, pretation of terms such as Individual and Society, Authority and
color, texture, and what is called decoration; form comprises all Freedom, Beautiful and Ugly, Good and Bad. If this customer
the qualities of an object which act on our senses and our apprecia- ordered a chair, the craftsman knew p recisely what was wanted and
tion. These qualities are to a great extent determined by the func- the customer knew he was exactly understood. The subtle tides of
tions for which the object is designed, by the materials from which progress and tradition carried them both.
it is made, and by certain human needs, resthetic, emotional, or Against this background of relative harmony and human scale, we
spiritual, which also want to be satisfied. The designer's main con- may compare the present-day scene which is rather complex and
tribution towards an achievement of form is to visualize these dif- ·
difficult to comprehend. New factors, like natural power, mass-
ferent requirements in their importance as constituents of form and
production, and capitalist markets, have gradually entered the field
then to integrate them into a balanced and satisfying whole. To
and caused many inconsistencies. It is necessary to investigate this
understand the designer's quest for form today it is necessary to
changed world at some length, to establish some of its main fea-
appreciate the specific conditions under which the problem exists
tures in order to secure an approach to the problem of design today.
at the present time. These conditions gave rise to the term Industrial
The pertinent traits of the age of the craftsman have been depicted
Design. They may best be seen against a historical background.
above in high-relief in order to clarify the points in question. For
Beforethe times of industrialization and mass-production practically the same reason the following description of the modern scene
every thing was custom-made. There were individual craftsmen, emphasizes the contrasts with the past rather than the continuity
brought up in the traditions of their guilds, as well as individual which, through living traditions, links the present-day develop-
customers, whose needs they satisfied. These craftsmen worked ments to the past.
within two sets of limitations which helped them in their tasks as
designers. On the one side they had their craft. Through a long The great changes which separate the world of the industrial de-
training period as apprentices and journeymen, these craftsmen signer from the world of the craftsman were brought about mainly
grew intimately acquainted with their materials. The blacksmith, by scientific discovery and the exploitation of the forces of nature.
locksmith, and gunsmith learned to know their steel; the carpenter, Harnessing wind and water with the primitive means of handi-
carriage builder, and cabinet maker experienced the qualities of craft was not enough to introduce new aspects. Steam and electricity,
· wood; the tanner, shoemaker, and harness maker knew what leather however, exploded the concepts to which man had grown accustomed
could do; the spinner and weaver learned the limitations of their since his early days. The concept of physical power, based on man-
fibres. Since they had no power tools, these artisans discovered power, was destroyed through the possibility of using natural ener-
and explored the inherent qualities of their materials, they experi- gies to an extent that rapidly outgrew all known proportions. The
enced their resilience and formability through their muscles and concept of distance, based, say, on the traveling habits of the horse,
through action which was physical as well as mental. This process was destroyed through the rapid development of transportation and
of conquest led to an intimate experience which without a doubt had communication far beyond established experience. The collapse of
a decisive influence upon their ideas as designers. (In those days the concepts of power and distance initiated the collapse of other
concepts such as efficiency and time.
the designer and the maker were still the same person. Our word
Art has its roots in the term to make 1 ) Previous to the use of power tools, the (continued on page 50)
30 ARTS AND ARCH ITECTURE
• Mathematics is a science and like any science its purpose is to help make our daily lives
easier to live. But somehow mathematics has fallen far short of achieving this. In school, where
we are required to study this science, our life is made miserable by having to use it; out of
school, where we shun it as much as possible, our life becomes unduly complicated by our not
being able to use it.
It can't be that there is something the matter with mathematics.
It can't be that there is something the matter with us- not with so many of us, at any rate.
There seems, however, to be rather much evidence that the trouble lies in the process of
getting mathematics and us together.
For example, would anybody teach a child how to walk by making him run a race with
his fellows? Yet this is the way we were taught arithmetic. We had hardly grasped the fact
it that one and one is two before our teacher was trying to find out how fast we could add.
We were pitted against the rest of our class, we were clocked, we were constantly hounded
to make more speed. Why? What was the hurry?
Mathematicians themselves are seldom fast adders. Why is it necessary that children add
a particular column in four seconds instead of six? We've seen over and over again what
doesn't this leads to. Everybody except the calculating genius ~evelops all kinds of complexes and
frustrations. Consequently in adult life, not only can't we add that column in four seconds,
we can~t even do it in six. Chances are it takes us ten seconds and we have to add it ten
times in the bargain. Then we're faced with the annoying problem of having to decide
which of the ten answers is the correct one.
add Forcing a child to calculate rapidly is bad enough, but how much · more ·absurd it is to
make him do something rapidly when he doesn't even understand what it is he's doing. One
of the main reasons why we find it difficult, if riot impossible, to handle numbers is be-
cause mathematics is taught not as something which arises out of our every-day life, but
as something extraneous to it-something which . exists outside of . us and is brought into
our life.
up The text book writers would deny this. Theywould point out, as most of them db in their
preface, how very practical their particular book is. All the problems are in simple terms-
terms the child can readily understand, terms with which he is completely familiar; all the
problems are related to his play, his home, :his school. Sure enough, if you look through
the book, you'll find the author is 100% correct. The problems are indeed the very same
practical problems that we as a child met in our daily life.
But these problems are not in themselves mathematics. The mathematics consists in their solu-
tion and in order to solve them we have to know to add, subtract, multiply, ~nd divide.
Now it is these processes which are not related to our life. These .processes are ta~gbt as if
they were a collection of ordained commandments that apparently ~ome out of the blue and
seemingly have no meaning whatsoever concerni~g anything with which we're familiar.
How, for example, is division taught. "To divide 175 by 7," says the book, "since 7 doesn't
go into 1, you say 7 into 17 is 2 and 3 left <?Ver. So you put down the 2 and prefix the 3
to the 5. Then you say .. etc ... etc . .. "
I think you'll agree that any connection between this and your day-to-day life is purely
coincidental. Nevertheless, this complete abstraction, this mathematical hocus-pocus is re-
lentlessly drilled into our skull and pounded into the crevices of our brain cells until it
seems our head is going to split wide open. But the human head can take a great deal. Some-
how or other it doesn't split and somehow or other we learn division-after a fashion, that is.
Now what?
Now our teacher gives us one of those practical every-day problems. It's a problem we
were able to solve almost automatically before we ever came near the school. Only now we
have to solve it by a process called division. One number must be divided by another and
we have to determine which number is to be divided by which. To arrive at this decision
involves a process of reasoi1ing which is somewhat obscure.
Where are we, Division which was supposed to be the means of solving the problem turns
out to be something quite' different. It turns out to be the very opposite. It becomes some-
thing that stands between the statement of the problem and its solution. It . becomes the
ohstacle, the hurdle, the stone wall which pre '.'en ts us from solv.i ng the problein.
Show the average person a fraction and he trembles. His bfood pressure sky rockets'. His
pulse climbs to 157 and drops to 6. His temperature soars to 212 and. sinks to 27 ' below
zero. He alternates between fever and chills 3 7 times in 14. . seconds. He stands gaping at
the fraction transfixed and as soon as he ca n gain controJ over himself he tufris on his
heel and dashes madly into the night.
There are many reasons why so many of us are terrified by fractions, but without doubt
one of those reasons can be found in the way we were introduced to numbers in general
and to fractions in particular.
Man's number ~oncept today is far different · from what it was when he first climbed down
out of the tree. It has broadened enormous] y; it has undergone changes; it is still chang-
BY HARMON ALEXAND ER ing. Nobody would think of teaching a child that the world is flat· (continued on page 53)
case study house
#
BY RICHARD J. NEUTRA, A. I. A.
A LPHA . . . FI TS AN Y LEVEL VALLEY BOTTOM This is the second of two houses designed for the magazine's Case Study House Pro-
gram by Richard J. Neutra. He has taken two hypothetical fomilies, the first, a Mr .
and Mrs. Omega, were pretty thoroughly digested in the October issue . We now come
to the problem of Mr. and Mrs. Alpha and the solution of their particular project.
• Mrs. Alpha's sister and her husband, the Omegas, have their house
on the next lot to the north. Together these people had decided on a
most favorable scheme, to settle themselves side by side-with their
houses and gardens in a harmonious relationship. In this manner, it
THIS IS THE THIRTEENTH OF A CONTI NUING SERIES OF should be possible to preserve both a controlled and agreeable view
STUD IES BY NINE NATIONALLY KNOWN ARCHITECTS FOR out of th~ major rooms of their homes, and to accomplish desirable
ARTS Cr ARCHITECTURE'S CASE STUDY HOUSE PROGRAM.
privacy- (in other words, to avoid a breakfast nook that looks di-1
The considerations and motives given for the type of flat but slanting
roof, draining the rain water in the same direction as does the sloping
ground itself, were readily accepted. The ang le of roof pitch, the light
gravel cover are identical on the Alpha and Omega houses; they
are prominent features of harmonizing the buildings with each other
and with the sloping grounds, an effect which the sketches can only
incompleteJy show.
Maple Arm Chair with webbed seat and back; developed for army use,
manufactured in Beecher Falls, Vermont.
CENTER LEFT: View from the entrance of the Gallery toward the Reading
Lounge which is separated from the exhibition space by a rope partition.
Furniture by H. G. Knoll.
SlRE:ET ELEVATION w
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MARCH 1946 43
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for these homes ~otmodern llvlng. See SCHUMACHE GRIPLA?'Ta ' SCHUMACHER
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their beauty and ia ty. Ask our representative f r full det/ •
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CSHou1t No. 11
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Btt trly HiUs, Cali/.
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MARCH 1946 "45
A Home To live In, Play In-This design, winner in the reation area, of the trend toward building ample play room
Suburban Home class of the recent American Builder prize into tomorrow's homes. Adapted from American Builder Mag-
competition, is by Charles and Arthur Schreiber of Chicago, azine, to show how a new idea in home heating-the Coleman
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new developments
furnishings, lighting, wall covering
• Newest development in outdoor furniture is a clean-lined group
of aluminum models by Deeco, Inc., of Los Angeles.
The line is made of three-quarter-inch solid aluminum extruded
rod. Cross bracing is attached by flat-head screws, leaving a
surface unmarred by bolt heads. Spring supports are extruded as
a flanged part of the frame., distrihuting stre:;:.ses uniformly through-
out the entire piece.
The furniture is polished to chrome-like finish and treated chemi-
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CSH o use # 1
pellent heavy duck, and table tops of laminated plastic. Models in-
designed by J. R. Davidson
clude lounges, chairs, tables and folding chairs. Heaviest piece, a
chaise lounge, weighs 48 pounds.
Deeco is a new organization established by the Deutsch Company,
manufacturer of hydraulic fittings . and valves for aircraft. Deeco
owns and is the chief customer of Central Metal Corporation. Deeco's
100,000-square-foot manufacturing plant is located in Burbank on
the same site where Aeron Corporation manufactured.
• Westinghouse Lamp Division has developed a "lighthouse in a
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• Information just released on Varlon indicates the stainproof
wall covering has stood up under a kicking around that shouldn't
happen to a saloon floor. for all of the
Dumped on samples of Varlon- and subsequently washed off with Arts & Architecture
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heel marks, meat sauces, salad dressings, syrup, face cream, jam, COWR CARDS with complete
chocolate candy, coffee, tea, rum, whisky, gin, beer, and blood. instructions for the
In special tests technicians of Varlon, Inc., Chicago, washed Varlon application of Interior
25,000 times, applied flame to it for five minutes, poured water in
a cup-shaped sample, turned German cockroaches loose on it for and Exterior Stucco and
s ix days, sandpapered it, applied Fade-Ometer lights to it for 24. Portland Cement Paint.
hours, put salt water on it, let bacteria and mold grow on it and
exposed it to Phenol, cod liver oil and sour milk, all without visible
effect, and with no resultant odor.
Varian stainproof wall covering is built up into a composite unit CALIFORNIA STUCCO COMPANY
with either paper or cloth backing. It may be applied by customary 184-0 E. 25th Street Los Anceles, Calif.
paper hanging methods. Paper backed Varlon trims as easily and
smoothly as any ordinary wall covering. Cloth backed, it is tougher CEntury 2-0101
Lut trims smooth and straight with 110 tendency to pull or ravel at
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ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
continut'd from page 29
amount of work a man could do in a day was somehow a ha~ic
unit, organically integrated with man's need for rest, his desire for
change, and his capacity for mental and emotional effort. The
strengthening of his arm, figuratively speaking, to an unknow n
proportion was hound to upset the balance of his scales. The old
harmony between man's imagination and his ability to carry thinas
out slowly disappeared. ti
Mfd. by HANDY HOME PRODUCTS CO., 1172 E. Slauson, Los Angeles 11, ADams 5022
MARCH 1946 51
~truggling along in their own limited fields, without a clear common Ill Ill
The disturbing aspects of this situation have long been hidden be- .·
hind the amazing feats of technological progress which stood in the ma u...
...c
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•
8&T METALS COMPANY
COLUMBUS 16, OHIO
52 ARTS AND ARCHITECT URE .
took possession of this new, this still unfinished, house we live in.
Everything around us is new and different-our concerns, our
working habits, our relation with one another. Our very psychology
has been shaken to its foundations, to its most secret recesses. Our
notions of separation, absence, distance, return, are a reflection of
a new set of realities, though the words themselves remain Un·
changed. To grasp the meaning of the world today we use a language
created to express the world of yesterday. The life of the past
seems to us nearer our true natures, but only for the reason that
it is nearer our language. Every step on the road of progress takes
us farther from habits which, as the life of man goes, we had only
recently begun to acquire. We are in truth emigrants who have not
yet founded our homeland."
This picture of an ultimate assimilation of industrialization into a
human way of life, however, is fecused on a point rather far in
the future. It may be indicative of a development in which we are
taking part, hut it may not offer great immediate help to the pres-
ent-day designer. His situation is still characterized by the disinte-
gration depicted above, and he is confronted with a perplexity which
may he described this way: the designer is no longer the maker.
Because of the specialization which has invaded almost every field
of human activity, he has lost the intimate contact with materials
nnd tools ; he only offers suggestions as to what to make by means
of drawings and models. He is a specialist himself within his own
limited field. Even if he tries to overcome this handicap by tryin~
to estahlish closer contact with the workman , he does not quite find
the expected reassurance: the old craftsman with his comprehensive
knowle<lire of materials and techniques has changed with the jntro·
riuction of nower tools and the subsequent specialization of workinp:
processes. The power tool , with its non-human strength, forms ,
treats, and alters materials to an extent which goes potentially he:-
vond human experience. The specific qualities of these materials
which seemed inherent on the level of handiwork and , having heen
respected , ha<l decisive influence on design , are negligible for the
technician with his clever devices of industrial technique. Any
material can be forced to do almost anything today: and the
material with the least character of its own is best suited for modern
production methods. At the same time, modern machinery has
deprived man of his chance to experience his materials as the artisan
has done. The man with the machine no longer sets his strength
against the stren~lh of the steel: he pushes a button . And he does
not follow his piece of work through the different processes of
making: he is a specialist himself. rolling: the sheet, "tamping thr
disc , drawing the shape, milling the rim , or polishing the finished
pan. Else he knows nothing.
Thus the designint?; artist of today has lost the guidance of materials
anfl techniques. From friendly and experienced collaborators these
have sunk almost to the role of anonymous slaves: following orders
hut leaving the designer without advice. Auguste Renoir complains
~omewhere in a letter about the same situation in the fie:ld of paint·
ing when he says: ''This craft which we shall never know in it~
entirety hecause no one can teach us a1iy more since we emancipated
ourselves from tradition."
"BUil T BY McKITTRICK" The other ~uide the craftsman had. who was the patron, has lih-
•.• that is a statement that had wise abandoned the designer of today. This patron whom Ananda
won respectful attention long be- Coomeraswamy in one of his lectures describes as follows: "The
fore Pearl Harbor. artist was not a special kind of man , but every man was a special
. . • during the war it took on kind of an artist. It was for the patron to say what should be made ;
11ew meaning by reason of a dis- for the artist, the "maker by art," to know how to make . . . . Nor
tinguished record of war-plant con- was the patron a special kind of man , but simply our consumer. This
struction patron was the "judge of art:" not as a critic or a connoisseur in
our academic sense, but one who knew his needs, as a carpenter
TODAY knows what tools he must have from the smith, and who could
••• all the varied techniques, distinguish adequate from inadequate workmanship, as the modern
equipment and know-how of this consumer cannot." As a matter of fact, even thi s modern con-
Masoned organisation is available !liumer had hardly any direct influence on the designer of today.
for YOU Beyond some necessarily quite limited personal contact~ the designer
knows onl y a "market." an impalpable something which ex i st~
in the minds of sales engineers and in the computations of husiness
surver. The alleged needs of this anonymous and rather formless
market, interpreted to him by an executive who is not the desirable
"iud~e of art," because his interest in the matter is purely financial ,
take the place of the old customer.
E. S. McKITTRICK COMPAIY, llC. Materials, techniques, understandinp; criticism, patrons : none of
INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS them help to guide the designer of today. Confronted with the
POST OFFICE BOX '470 task, enormous in scope and responsibility, to form our tools of
HUNTINGTON PARK, CALIFORNIA living, the designer stands alone. To recognize this situation, how-
ever, and to admit its implications, may be the first step towards
finding a remedy.
MARCH 1946 53
IT DOESN'T ADD UP
continued from page 30
and then later correcting this illusion. Yet the equivalent is done
in mathematics. When we begin the study of arithmetic we are
innoculated with the same primitive number concept that early
man had. What happened to primitive man shouldn't happen to us.
But it does. A fraction enters our life like an atom bomb and blows
our number concept to smithereens. Some of us never can get re-
organized and can never quite get around to building a new num-
ber concept that includes fractions.
The concept of a fraction itself has grown to be something quite
different from what it once was. But this, too, has had little effect
on the way fractions are taught. Consider these statements: 3
oranges cost 15c; an airplane goes 200 miles per hour; a meter is
39.37 inches; 4 out of 5 people hate arithmetic. Each of these state-
ments is expressed by a fraction. Yet these statements seem to have
little, if any, connection with each other and certainly no apparent
relationship to a piece of pie which is the way we were first intro-
duced to fractions in school.
As a matter of fact, the use of a fraction to represent a part of some- I THE
thing is probably the most difficult function of a fraction to 11
understand. But this is still the first we are taught. We are told "CASE STUDY
further in this connection that the denominator indicates into how
many parts the thing has been divided whereas the numerator tells POSTWAR
us how many of these parts are to be taken. So far, so good.
But then when we translate the statement "3 oranges cost 15c" into
HOMES
the fraction 3/15, what do we find? Why we find, of all things,
that the numerator indicates oranges and the denominator indicates
money. Not only that, the numerator indicates all the oranges and
the denominator all the money. There's no part or fraction of any-
thing involved here. Then, too, we might have shown the relation-
ship between the money and the oranges by writing the fraction
15/3 in which case, of couse, everything we've said about the
numerator and denominator would have been reversed. What hap-
pened to the original definition of a fraction?
Thus to a struggling student of arithmetic, just a young fellow try-
- ing to get along, a fraction seems absolutely unpredictable. It
never seems to mean the same thing twice. It's like some mis-
chievous imp. Is it any wonder, then, that so few of us regard McNEIL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
fractions as particularly charming company? Contractor•
The need for mathematics is greater today than ever before. We
not only need it in our day-to-day living, but it is also becoming
more and more necessary as a means of understanding what goes
on in the complex world around us. I began this article with the
statement that mathematics is a science. I end with the thought
that if this science is to be made available to the people, then it's
about time the teaching of it also became a science.
E. WILLARDSON
Plumbing and Heating Contractor
Olympia 2156 and 2157 DRILL STEEL SHARPENED
TOOLS FOB. BENT DEPENDABLE SERVICE
2880 Rowena Avenue • Los Angeles, Callfomia VAndlke 7168 1517 Santa Fe Ave •
Sold by Aco111tl-C.lotex Dl1trltluten EvetywheN ••• 111 Caaoda: Dominion So11nd Eq11lpmenll, ltd.
EVERYDAY ART GALLERY the tragic urgency breaking the textural surface. One has no longer
continued from page 39 any sense of the music progressing movement by movement, end
Thus the sense of beauty may be said to be molded at mother's to end; there is no feeling of beat or measure except as a controlling
knee as much as the sense of duty. Surely, human beings are aware wave. The technical flowing and dynamic modelling of the run-
of color, texture, forms in objects of daily use before they are old ning line make any virtuoso playing I have heard sound like mere
enough to enjoy painting and sculpture. Yet how rich a life is note-playing. The arches of the sonatas pass through their final
possible-leaving out of consideration the distribution of national measures without hesitation to an exactly located perfect end.
income, which is another and basic question-in terms of what The brief and delightful Fantasy Sonata, opus 27:1, prefaced a
present-day building, home furnishings and accessories offer the splendid reading of the Sonata, opus 10:3, balancing as its own
middle income bracket famil y ? Design and manufacture must be relatively slighter movements cannot the length and deeper emotion
improved in order to make modern living available even to this of this first of Beethoven's very large slow movements. The first
numerically limited group. The Everyday Art Gallery proposes group of three sonatas made an intricately joined overall com-
to work toward this end through consumer education, hoping to position like an earlier version of a ]ate quartet, pivoting on the
bring consumer and producer together in a relation more demo- large slow movement, balanced by the opening of the second Fan-
cratic than the manufacturer's present shotgun attitude of "Take tasy Sonata, opus 27 :2, rising to a finale that was only short of the
it or leave it." W aWstein. This decisive inversion of the three movement sonata
This objective of enlisting the consumer in an active use of the sequence, by putting the principal movement at the end and reduc-
"minor arts" is surely one which will win support. For a number ing the proportions though not the importance of the two preceding
of years it has been clear that all is not well with contemporary movements, prepares the shape of the late Sonatas, opus 109 and
American art-or artists. Social relations for the encouragement opus llO, that together made up the second half of the program.
of art have been tenuous, and the audience for art limited. Art has The tidal attack and retrogression throughout the first two move-
been, by and large, snobbistic, and its enjoyment confined to a ments of the E major Sonata are climaxed by the quiet and almost
clique. Yet art is of little value unless it reaches people. If the casual laying down of the variations theme, which through steadily
arts of daily living, of pots and pans and cookstoves, serve as a extending variation mounts to a realization of all that had there
bridge to awaken the esthetic sense of the American people, so much been quietly implicit, and with the final simplicity of an art
the better. that needs no further saying the theme returns. In the fugue of the
With the nation embarkin~ on a vast home construction program, A /lat major Sonata one heard all voices polyphonically moving
the writer sincerely hopes that the Everyday Art Gallery will find a in harmonic separateness; and after the tragic restraint of the slow
wide popular following. More than that, it would be a fine out- interlude chord rose upon chord in an unbelievable measure and
come if other large American communities felt inspired to develop control of the increasing volume, until like a golden wire of single
similar activities. For the existing centralization of style and fashion tone the fugue theme re-emerges. And at the end the fugue bursts
in our great cultural metropolis has great dangers as well as great into flames.
advantages. Perhaps the most hopeful thing about the Everyday It will be best to supplement and at least partially confirm state-
Art Gallery is that it came into being more than a thousand miles ments which have already gone too near the further border of the
west of New York City. superlative by quoting the review by Mildred Norton in the Daily
News: "The most magnificent piano playing I have ever heard
MUSIC in my life came from the fingers, the mind, and the heart of
continued from page 17 Richard ~uhlig ~o~day ni~ht ... : Of th~ E major I can only say·
simply larger but in every detail more accurate. His softest playing that the frnal vanahons, with theu crushrng momentum and their
blends in a continuous plastic unison with the largest tone. And sure and controlled resolution in the placidly beautiful final bars,
it is always tone, though often thinned or roughened to enforce was the most moving experience in my life."- PETER YATES.
CASE STUDy
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