Art Deco: Polemics and Synthesis

Author(s): Richard Striner

Source: Winterthur Portfolio , Spring, 1990, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), pp. 21-34
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Henry Francis du Pont
Winterthur Museum, Inc.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1181301

REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1181301?seq=1&cid=pdf-
reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. and The University of Chicago Press are
collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Winterthur Portfolio

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Art Deco

Polemics and Synthesis

Richard Striner

HE STUDY OF ART DECO becomes gested that its exponents "assumed a lackadaisical
useful precisely when the questmiddle
forcourse
a per- between the High Art Modernists
and
fectly delineated "style" yields tothe
anTraditionalists."2
appre- This middle range of de-
ciation of the volatility that characterized early
sign could be a freewheeling expression of contem-
twentieth-century design. Much asporaneity.
the eclectic
It was a de-
spirit that sought to express the
sign of the nineteenth century served astemper
vibrant a medium
of its times; it sought to capture the
in which very different inspirations haunting and creeds
savor of life in the jazz age, and later it
sought to
could influence one another, art deco in the 192osexpress the upbeat, modish, "stream-
and 1930s proved to be a middle lined"
rangerhythms
betweenof life in the age of "swing." It
frequently
antagonistic ideologies. In particular, exuded as
it served joie de vivre and celebrated
an important channel between radical
progressand tradi-
through technology. But for all its ex-
uberance, art deco was not an insubstantial move-
tionalist design responses to twentieth-century
challenges. ment, nor did it shrink from artistic complexities.
I consider art deco to be a movement that drewAt times it captured the fears, as well as the hopes,
on design ideas that emerged from the 1925 Paris of the interwar period in Europe and America. Its
exhibition and from the streamlining genre during mediational role was a function of its broad emo-
tional range.
the 1930s. It is well to regard these design impulses
as closely related components of an overall move- Although utopian and futurist aspects of early
ment rather than as two distinct movements, es-twentieth-century design have been amply studied,
pecially since commonalities and hybrid combi- design historians have not said enough about the
nations were abundant by the 1930s, as muchangst of of the interwar years: the sense among writ-
the commercial architecture of the period demon- ers and artists that Western culture might be near-
strates (fig. i). Even David Gebhard, the scholar ing decline and fall. In a period torn by upheavals,
most inclined to emphasize the so-called zigzag/ depression, persecutions, and the threat of recur-
streamline dichotomy, views these two as related rent war, many influential writers and artists be-
subdivisions of an overall movement which he lieved that Western civilization might well be
terms the "Moderne."' For convenience, the poised at the brink of either a disastrous cataclysm
widely accepted term art deco serves equally well.
or a new historical cycle. Oswald Spengler's Decline
Art deco designs were in a middle range be- of the West, T. S. Eliot's poetry of desolation (con-
tween polarized tendencies. Gebhard has sug- trasted to the splendor of classical achievements),
the pathos of Leopold Bloom contrasted to the
grandeur of Homer's adventurer in James Joyce's
Richard Striner is assistant professor of history, Washing-
Ulysses, the cyclical theory in Arnold Toynbee's
ton College, Chestertown, Md., and president of the Art Deco
Society of Washington, D.C. books and essays-all of this conveys the milieu in
The author is grateful to Washington College for a which
fac- visionary commentators such as Lewis Mum-
ulty enhancement grant and to the following individuals: Tim
Backer, Emily Bernard, Carolyn Koenig, MaryAnn Lando,
Richard Longstreth, and Tony Wrenn. 2 David Gebhard, "About Style, Not Ideology," Architecture
73, no. 12 (December 1983): 35. See also Hans Wirz and
i David Gebhard, "The Moderne in the U.S., 1920-1941," Richard Striner, Washington Deco: Art Deco Design in the Nation's
Architectural Association Quarterly 2, no. 3 (July 1970): 4-20.
Capital (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1984), pp. 18-19; and Richard Striner, "Defining Art Deco,"
? 1990 by The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum,
Inc. All rights reserved. 0084-0416/90/2501-0002$3.00 Art Deco News 3, no. 4 (Winter 1983): 2.

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 22 Winterthur Portfolio

Fig. i. Irving M. Fenichel, Knicke

plant, Long Island City,
Fig. 2. Publicity N.Y.,
photograph for 19
Cecil B. DeMille's
Record 72, no.Madam
6 Satan,
(December 193
1930/31. From Dancing Times (January
1931): cover.

ford, cerns of the interwar

Lloyd Frank period.3 Here was a design A
Wright,
Corbusier propounded their
that sought to "locate" itself symbolically--and by
solutions. A knowledge
extension to offer a commentary on its timesof and t
apocalyptic its cultural milieu-using
moods (notwithstaextremes in historical
portant visionsimageryofas points technologic
of emotional reference. What
much-needed better
basis for
way to "get one's bearings," assessi
so to speak, to
fusing the conjure with the question, Who,traditi
modernist, and where, are
range responses to age
we, in this turbulent the
of the machine perio
(fig. 2)?
To be sure, the Writers threat
of the period also experimented
of withim
catastrophe historical commentary ofboth
affected this sort. Describingrad
Manhattan of the future,
twentieth-century John Dos Passos wrote:
traditional
cals sought to "There were Babylon and Nineveh; they
preempt were built
disaste
from the chaosof brick.
ofAthens was
thegold marblepast
columns. Rome an
world of orderwas held up on broad
(as arches of rubble. In Con-
envisioned
pher stantinople the
designers), the minarets flame like great candles
tradition
off disaster byround the Golden Horn .... Steel, glass, tile, the
maintaining con-
classical order. crete will be the material of the skyscrapers.
In contrast, the art deco designers sought toCrammed on the narrow island the millionwin-
dowed buildings will jut glittering, pyramid o
blend ancient imagery-from classicism to the sym-
bolic repertoire of ancient Egyptian and Aztec
art-with the futurist imagery of Buck Rogers and
3 Wirz and Striner, Washington Deco, p. 21; Richard Striner,
Flash Gordon. This simultaneous reaching out to
"Echo Deco," Museum and Arts Washington 3, no. 2 (March/Ap
1987): 17-19.
the past and future was highly symptomatic of con-

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Art Deco 23

pyram
storm
Rebecca West observed that on New York's "Lex-
ington Avenue there is a vast apartment house
which rears its dark masses like the Pyramids and
which like them is an example of mystery-making
in stone." For other social critics, design seemed to
promise an actual release from historical cycles-
critic Edwin Avery Park ventured in 1930 that the
skyscraper is "an eternal principle-nothing of the
moment."4
Past and future, ageless archetypes, and ancient
mysterymaking were reawakened in thrilling new
materials: how tellingly art deco designers looked
to both extremes of the historical continuum-the
ancient past and the distant future, the pharaohs'
world and the world of Buck Rogers-and fused
the images. Representations of strange gods in
futuristic settings, as in Fritz Lang's 1926 film
classic Metropolis, pervaded art deco designs. And
the tendency continued, albeit in muted form,
throughout the 1930os. One can see it in the myriad
public buildings that synthesized classical composi-
tion and streamlined curves that bespoke the world
of tomorrow (figs. 3, 4). It can also be seen in
Fig. 3. G. V
4 John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer
Portland Plac (1925; reprint, Bos-
ton: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1963), p. 12; Rebecca West quoted
72, no. 429
in Herbert Croly, "A New Dimension in Architectural Effects,"
Architectural Record 57, no. 1 (January 1925): 93; Edwin Avery
Park, "The New Expression in the Arts," Architectural Forum 52,
no. 2 (February 1930): 35-

Fig. 4. Robert Stanton, King City High School Auditorium, King City, Calif., 1937.
(Courtesy, American Institute of Architects Archives.)

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 24 Winterthur Portfolio

But reconciliati
business in desig
of angst. Time
was subjected to
distinct misfort
bodiment of k
achievements.
In 1928 noted commentator Henry-Russell
Hitchcock, Jr., broadly sketched the character and
interaction of what he regarded as the key design
tendencies of the times. They were essentially past-
related, future-related, and mediational. In the
first group were "Traditionalists"--those whose
"controlling idea" demanded the "adaptation of
the various architectural manners of the past to the
needs of the moment." At the other pole were the
"New Pioneers"-the radical modernists seeking
"purity" and "austere beauty" through "ascetic
avoidance of ornament." Finally, there were the
"New Traditionalists"-those who were "retro-
spective in their tendency to borrow freely fr
the past" yet "modern in that they feel free to
and combine ... the elements thus borrowed [wi
new materials developed by science, controll
them so that they shall not shock the eye." Amo
Fig. 5. Dining room, T. Hitchcock
the new traditionalists, Eaton includedanWrig
1930, Jacques Carlu, designer, Nat
the Wiener Werkstitte,
From Architectural Record 69, no. and the works of Fren
designers that were exhibited "at the Exposition
1925." Although Hitchcock believed that the ne
Joyce's masterwork Finnegans
traditionalists Wa
represented "an intelligently tak
position,"
like blending of he also stated that traditionalis
historical cycle
whether old or new, was "already
writings of Giambattista Vico), wearing it
and mythological presences-a
out." He acknowledged, "the manner of the N
mid 1920os and Pioneers may not be thatincreme
slowly, which is destined
supersede
the 193os-as well as the New
inTradition,"
the but 1938 could n
Butler Yeats, who argued,
suppress the "all
opinion, "no other young t
archit
built again" amid the
tural movement strange
has developed so brilliantly" h
as
The impulse movement
to synthesize,
of the new pioneers: "they represen t
nistic realms-past
far more livingand
architecturefuture
than that of the N
radical-was a defining
Traditionalists."' Thus wasquality
the gauntlet hurled
role world in the
ofbutdesign.
1928-respectfully unmistakably. The mo I
dency ment (or movements)
deco of
to reconcile relating to art deco cac
art
and even some underaspects
attack very quickly byof clas
the partisans of w
salutes to thewasradical modern
soon to be called the "International Style."
1930s, the synthesizing
It is commonplace now to take the ten
diversity
wealth of buildings
modern design for and object
granted. Students have lo
composition, modernist simp
looked upon Bauhaus/international style design
streamlining, and Parisian-insp
merely an influential movement among a range
were combined (fig.
divergent 5).
modernisms. We smile at the notion t

6 Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr., "Modern Architecture,"

5 William Butler Yeats, "Lapis Lazuli" (1938), in1,
Selected
"The Traditionalists and the New Tradition," and pt. 2, "
Poems and Two Plays of William Butler Yeats, ed. M. L. New Pioneers," Architectural Record 63, no. 4 (April 1928):
Rosenthal
49 passim, and no. 5 (May 1928): 453-57 passim.
(1962; reprint, New York: P. F. Collier, 1966), p. 16o.

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Art Deco 25

the the manifestos, even with the caveat "Revolution

sleek g
were some
can be avoided." The devastation and irrationality
nity of World War I had left a searing impression
than th o
ernistthe minds of certain writers and artists that West-
move
fine ern
arts)culture had only one more chance to avert sua
Yet the int
dark age. The sense of mission infusing so many of
tual the modernist movements-explicitly linked in
tyrann
style was,
many cases to millennial creeds of both the left and
impressive the right wings-took on a new urgency in the
creed of radical "functionalism" and its antihistori-
aftermath of the war. In 1931 Fritz Schumacher
cist applications led to a swaggering divisiveness.
proclaimed, "the war shattered all continuity af-
The modernist crusade became so strident that forded by feeling." A consequence of this was that
even the polemics of Le Corbusier, who had ini- were under "pressure to express [their]
architects
tially argued for a modern design that would
time completely. . . . Out of the darkness grows
achieve a twentieth-century reformulation of clas-the rose hour of dawn."10
slowly
sicism, had yielded by the 1930s to a widely held Many commentators in the world of design
conviction that classicism and modernism were took up the cause, and their cries became increas-
fundamentally at odds. ingly militant. In 1934 social and literary critic
The rhetoric of Le Corbusier conveys theHerbert
spirit Read averred: "An artist must plan the
militant. In his famous 1923 manifesto, Towards a
distribution of cities within a region; an artist must
New Architecture (Vers Une Architecture), the princi-
plan the distribution of buildings within a city; an
ples rang out: "There is a moral sentiment in the must plan the houses themselves, the halls
artist
and factories and all that makes up the city; an
feeling for mechanics. The man who is intelligent,
cold and calm has grown wings to himself." artistIntel-must plan the interiors of such buildings-
lectuals were obligated either to acknowledge thethis
shapes of the rooms and their lighting and
and join in or to lose the chance of avertingcolor;
socialan artist must plan the furniture of the
rooms,
cataclysm: "Society is filled with a violent desire fordown to the smallest detail, the knives and
something which it may achieve or may not. forks,Every-the cups and saucers and the door han-
thing lies in that: everything depends upon dles.""
theWhile all of this had no doubt been said
before, Read's tone carried with it a new and terr-
effort made and the attention paid to these alarm-
ing symptoms. Architecture or Revolution. ible Revo-intensity. Everything depended on the effort
lution can be avoided." The way to avoid revolu-made and the attention paid to the alarming symp-
tion was to create "the mass production spirit. toms-as
The Le Corbusier had said.
spirit of constructing mass production houses. The The polemics prompted a reformulation of th
spirit of living in mass production houses."8rationalist primitivism that had informed certa
By 1929 Le Corbusier was even more impa- byways of eighteenth-century thought, especial
tient: "This century has officially openedthe to writings
us of Anthony Ashley Cooper, third ea
of Shaftesbury, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
gates yawning on the infinite, on majesty, silence
and mystery. . . . Never was there an epoch senseso that rationality lies in stripping from the h
powerfully, so unanimously inspired. Poetry is
man condition all accretions of artifice that
everywhere, constant, immanent." And yet, in-
suppress the underlying instinctive sense of tr
credibly, "the past has ensnared us. ... We aretwentieth-century reduction of artifice i
The
truth in form was intended as much as a work of
cowardly and timorous, lazy and without imagina-
tion .... It is my opinion that as yet we havesocial
seen engineering as of liberation. No longer
nothing new, done nothing new."'9 would wild, irrational, and destructive passions lay
There was no mistaking the apocalyptic toneto waste
of the achievements of Western man, if the
environment were stripped of lies to reveal the
dignity of human needs-goods and services,
7 Gebhard, "Moderne in the U.S.," p. 5.
8 Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, trans. Frederick
Etchells (London: Architectural Press, 1948), pp. 119, 268-69,
12.
10 Fritz Schumacher, "Trends in Architectural Though
9 Le Corbusier, "Architecture, the Expression of the Architectural
Mate- Forum 54, no. 4 (April 1931): 402.
rials and Methods of Our Times," Architectural Record 66,
11no. 2
Herbert Read, Art and Industry: The Principles of Indust
(August 1929): 126, 128. Design (London: Faber and Faber, 1934), p. 40.

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 26 Winterthur Portfolio

straightforwardly delivered
tionalist buildings th
as "ramshackle, sentimental,
and function. pretentious, dishonest, and ugly"-with his own
The intellectual hegemony of the new vision declamation:
in "It has been reserved for the so-
the world of 193os and 1940s architecture is famil-called Modernists to be irritated at any resem
iar enough, but less familiar is the pervasiveness blance
of to anything that has calm, and to adore
the vision among a wider literary and cultural
cess in every direction, to be shapeless, cru
realm. Two examples display the extent to whicheliminated in detail to nothingness, explosive
the vision had affected social criticism by the late detail to chaos and to create sensation with the
1920s. Economist Stuart Chase, in a lengthy at- slapstick and the bludgeon."13
tempt to assess the impact of machine-made ways Yet in their writings architectural conservative
of life on society, pronounced, "the most impres- were often quick to acknowledge that tradition
sive exhibit in the rebirth of art" is "the skyscraper,might still require revitalization and possibly some
a pure machine creation." When that form of ar- thing even greater-as in the mythic parable o
chitecture is "treated for what it is, rather than asLedaa and the Swan, a new infusion of spirit-if th
Greek temple or a Moorish palace, ... we have an twentieth century's challenges were to be met. In
authentic work of art." Social critic Waldo Frank 1930 an editorial in the influential Federal Archite
was more vehement. He condemned the "architec- condemned the "germ of Modern Architectur
tural lies that our ambitious architects smear over
with its "thumb-nosing at the past" but admitted
our steel structures" and the fragments of anti- "modern architecture can be good" so long as
quated styles that are "pilfered and stuck about entails
our a simultaneous "breaking away from the ol
buildings."12 To men such as these the moral was architecture" and "a loyalty" to the more worth-
very clear: modern design should be honest while aspects of tradition, an achievement the edi
enough to make a clean break with the past,torial
to writer formulated as "the Moderne tradi-
tionalized, the Traditional modernized." Three
design boldly for a new century, to take command
of the unruly machine age and effectively har-
years later, classicist Paul Philippe Cret lashed out
ness it. at the "left wing of the modernists, which ... pro-
The new creed did not go unchallenged by ar-
fesses to be strictly truthful," while inflicting "twice
chitects trained in the Ecole des Beaux Arts tra- as much glass surface in a room as is usable." He
dition or by sympathetic and genteel critics.decried
The the "holier-than-thou" hypocrisy and in-
responses were often impassioned. The radical sisted on the right to do what he believed to be
creed, traditionalists protested, was a false"appropriate
pre- even if somebody else did it before."
scription for the ills of Western culture-the Yet
veryas he took this position, he was also reaping
praise for synthesizing classicism and modern
last thing that society needed in an age fraught
with chaos, threatened by disintegration,simplification
and of form in the Folger Shakespeare
marked by a center that could not hold. What Library
was in Washington, D.C. (1929-32). For Cret
really needed was a shoring up of the Western the "modernist trend" was "useful," when purged
tradition, an affirmation of its continuities. Inof its dogmas and affectations; he pointedly
1927
Milton B. Medary, president of the Americansaluted In- the modernist movement in the buildings
stitute of Architects, publicly condemned thehe designed for Chicago's Century of Progress Ex-
pre-
cepts of radical modernism as "sophistry" andpositionpro- in 1933-14
claimed that one might as well go beyond Although some influential classicists desired a
architecture and reduce all civilization to the ab- conditional rapprochement with the modernists,
surd and the unintelligible: "Let us have an en- the continued vilifications by modernist writers en-
tirely new written language, as well as the physicalsured an escalating feud. By the late 1930s the
one; let us stop using the words used by Shake-
polemical bloodletting in the controversies sur-
speare and express our thoughts by sounds never
heard before." In 1930 at an institute convention,
avowed traditionalist C. Howard Walker returned '" Milton B. Medary, "President Medary's Address, the
1927 Convention, American Institute of Architects," Architec-
the fire of modernist George Howe-who had con- tural Forum 46, no. 6 (June 1927): [2]; Howe and Walker quoted
demned the "overwhelming majority" of tradi- in "Modernist and Traditionalist," Architectural Forum 53, no. 1
(July 1930): 49, 50.
14 "Can Modern Architecture Be Good," Federal Architect 1,
12 Stuart Chase, Men and Machines (New York: Macmillan, no. 2 (October 1930): 6, 8, 9; Paul Philippe Cret, "Ten Years of
1930), pp. 242, 245-46; Waldo Frank, The Re-Discovery ofModernism," Architectural Forum 59, no. 2 (August 1933): 92,
America (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929), pp. 90-91.94-

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Art Deco 27

rounding t
make them flower like cherry trees in spring-is
and the Nat
this not the engendering power of great architec-
ples of ture? ... The root of great architecture is like the l
the
The search for a reconciliation in the modern- root of any created beauty, deep in the matrix of
ist-traditionalist war was an abiding theme with human consciousness. It is spontaneity, delight in
certain architectural commentators in the 1920S form. ... Can it be that the International Style has
and 1930s. It took on more urgency when the never full- learned how to play?"16
blown manifestations of totalitarianism were ascen- Against these polemics, art deco, a quintessen-
dant by the mid 1930s and as intolerance of the tially playful design movement, was assessed in the
radical modernists was more than fully repaid intwenties and thirties. Initial reactions to the de-
the Nazi-led purge of Weimar cultural "degener- signs varied widely. In 1925 art critic Helen Apple-
acy" and the Stalinist suppression of the avant- ton Read reviewed the displays at the Paris exposi-
garde. As the forces of intolerance became more tion and pronounced that both the "credo of
powerful, prospects for pacification appeared modern art" and "the glorification of the machine"
more dubious. Even some of the more striking ar- had been "determining factors in the development
chitectural compromises, such as modernized ver- of this new decor." Other critics reached precisely
the opposite conclusion and attacked the designs
sions of classicism, were easily put to use by repres-
sive regimes. There could be no comfort to the for failing to live up to the potential of machine
aesthetics. Sheldon Cheney derisively observed
democratic adherents of classicism-particularly
Americans who regarded the buildings designedthat Paris had "spread out the buildings of the Ex-
by John Russell Pope and his colleagues as temples
position of Decorative Arts, avowedly to bring to
of democracy-to behold the structures designed focus contemporary French effort outside of the
by Albert Speer for Hitler's Germany. Somewhere,traditional styles-and to bring world Modernism
between the Museum of Modern Art and what the into agreement with the graceful French talent
But that affair, and the sporadic outcroppings
Nazis exhibited as examples of "degenerate art,"
there had to exist a middle path of humane con-
here and there, . . . have only gone to show that
temporaneity. But modernized classicism proved
outside a few inspired engineers and one or two
an undependable compromise, and radical mod-imported radical architects, the impotent Beaux
Arts men still control France."17
ernists continued to deny that there was any legiti-
mate basis for compromise in design. It was perfectly true that beaux arts training
In 1930 Wright-although known for his own could be found in the backgrounds of numerous
frequent intolerance-delivered a powerful ap- middle-range designers; in the United States, also,
peal in which he argued that neither the "senti- a significant number of architects widely regarded
mentality of the 'ornamental"' nor the newer as "modernistic," in the sense of being sympathetic
"sterility of ornaphobia" could satisfy the needsto
ofmodernism while refusing to disavow orna-
modern society: "I believe that Romance-this ment-architects such as William Van Alen and
quality of the heart, the essential joy that we have Raymond
in Hood, respectively the designers of th
living-by human imagination of the right sort can
Chrysler Building and (with several collaborator
be brought to life again .... Our architecture ...
Rockefeller Center-had been trained accordi
[will] become a poor, flat-faced thing of steel
to the principles of the ecole. It was also true th
classicism pervaded much of the 1925 Paris expo
bones, box-outlines, gas-pipe and hand-rail fittings
. . without this essential heart beating in it. tion,
Ar- notwithstanding the exotic ornamental lan
chitecture, without it, could inspire nothing."'5guage. But these middle-range designers wer
Three years later architectural critic Talbot seeking to expand their work to come to terms w
Hamlin joined the fray. "It is not quantitative func-
modernity and the machine. It was this act of pr
tionalism that is at the root of great architecture. It
sumption-this intrusion on the preserve of high
is not abstruse intellectual content of any kindart... purism-that infuriated the radicals. Onl
It is not conformity to any theory.... It is never a
denial of joy in life .... To be beautiful, gracious,
16 Talbot Faulkner Hamlin, "The International Style Lacks
enticing-to take the bare limbs of building the andEssence of Great Architecture," American Architect 143, no.
2615 (January 1933): 12.
17 Helen Appleton Read, "The Exposition in Paris," Inter-
15 Frank Lloyd Wright, Modern Architecture, Being national
the KahnStudio 82, no. 342 (November 1925): 93; Sheldon
Cheney,
Lectures for 193o (Princeton: Princeton University Press, The New World Architecture (New York: Longmans,
1931),
PP- 40, 39. Green, 1930), pp. 29, 175-

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 28 Winterthur Portfolio

machine-age aesthetic
Solon criticized the show for that was
failing "to impart the
and content could ever
conviction that be worth
it is an authoritative and convincing
statement of an exalted aesthetic aim." He main-
sisted; mere "expressiveness" wa
Alfred H. Barr,tained that the times
Jr., anddemanded an authentic
Philip J
explained in 1934, the
"style," which he viewed problem
as analogous to biologicae
troducing Americans to ofmoder
development. (The language Darwinism, in
"the conflict against highly popularized a form-so
strongoften a medium ha fo
but rather against a 'modernisti
expressing concerns about the "evolution" of his-
age aesthetic."'18 tory-pervaded this architectural review, as did
Six years earlier Hitchcock
the pseudoscientific had
theories of race identity tha
vast mass of attendant 'modern' crafts which since gave to this period so much of its sinister quality
the 1925 Exposition has flowed into America" was, "In the phases of the [prevailing] Modernist mov
alas, "not very good." To him, "the danger .ment . . . . . the French operate under a tempera
[was] that America will copy this special and mental
not disadvantage ... [because] the characteri
very desirable form of the New Traditionalism, tics of the style," by which he meant modernism
forgetting that in Frank Lloyd Wright we already"and the actuating impulses are fundamentall
Nordic."2' No doubt the Nazis, who loathed the
possess a far greater architect than even Perret."'1
Indeed, the alarm against Parisian art deco had
modernist avant-garde, took this as a backhanded
been sounded in America almost immediately.compliment.
In
1926 Ellow H. Hostache had subjected the exposi-Despite his initially negative reaction, three
tion to withering scorn: years later Solon was willing to credit an example
of art deco architecture-specifically New York
October is waning-and so is this Exposition. This Expo-
sition! What of it? ... A few million cubic feet of con- Park Avenue Building (1927, Buchman and
crete and plaster, shedding their varnishes andKahn),
now with qualities befitting a coherent "stylistic
species":
ready for the masse of the demolisher. . . . And what of "We are living in a period in which the
origination of a new order of aesthetic expression
the Decorative Arts? Les Arts Decoratifs are no more!...
This bastard offspring of anaemic artisanshipisand
under way; not as a passing vogue . . . but as a
general
efficient salesmanship was not fit to live. .. . But what was movement compelling the direction of
it all about? About ornament! The dictatorship of progressive
orna- activities." For Solon this portended "a
ment! ... The modern world is in full formation, and radical alteration in the angle from which aesthetic
drags with it too many elements of the past lacking any problems will be approached in the future-more
further reason for remaining. ... The entire Exposition in accord with contemporary scientific investiga-
might be described as a futile gesture,-if not a hope-
tion than that order of procedure which, in the
lessly lost opportunity for helpful accomplishment.20
past, attended stylistic evolution." And Ely Jacques
Other critics were more ambivalent. W. Franck- Kahn's "richness of invention" and "pure logic of
all argument responsible for each phase of expres-
lyn Paris pointed out that while the exposition fea-
tured "many pieces and many effects which aresion" a in the building were "so self-evident and con-
joy to the eye, and give promise to the flowering vincing,"
of that Solon chose not to "insult the read-
a new style," there were also "startling new con- er's perception by describing the obvious."22
structions . . . all corners and sharp angles . . . "Pure logic" was exactly what most hostile crit-
where the designers manifest a laborious striving ics believed was absent from art deco design; and
for riotous incoherency." What was one to make by of the early 1930S such critics were increasingly
it all? "It cannot be that this art is meant to en- vocal. For the most part, their denunciations pro-
dure," Paris concluded: "these are all adventitiousceeded from the premises of radical modernism
creations, a peculiarly fascinating combinationand
ofbecame snider as the years passed.
good and bad qualities, called into service by apos-
tles of the superlative." Sculptor and critic Leon21V.
W. Francklyn Paris, "The International Exposition of
Modern Industrial and Decorative Art in Paris," pt. 1, "Interior
Architecture," and pt. 2, "General Features," Architectural Rec-
is Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and Philip Johnson, Introduction to ord 58, no. 3 (September 1925): 265, and no. 4 (October 1925):
Machine Art: March 6-April 20, 1934 (1934; reprint, New York: 376, 384; Leon V. Solon, "Will the Exposition Regain Artistic
Museum of Modern Art, 1969), p. [9]. Leadership for France?" Architectural Record 58, no. 4 (October
19 Hitchcock, "Modern Architecture," pp. 346, 347-
1925): 391, 392.
2o Ellow H. Hostache, "Reflections on the Exposition des 22 Leon V. Solon, "The Park Avenue Building, New York
Arts Decoratifs," Architectural Forum 44, no. 1 (January 1926): City, Buchman and Kahn, Architects: The Evolution of a
11, 15. Style," Architectural Record 63, no. 4 (April 1928): 289, 296-97.

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Art Deco 29

In a 1932 issu
Step upon step ascending to its Climax,
Serge Within Cherm
its sheath of Aluminum Plymax.
son of So too the Lights, that skilfully combine
two n
London The rival claims of Functiondail and Design,
Before thy Shrine, Uncertainty, are lit,
building "fl
To shed their Radiance o'er us as we sit
edged with
Discreetly on the Architectural Fence,
copies Too hard of for Sentiment, too soft Parfor Sense.23
thoroughly "
trast, Such
the were the vulnerabilities ofDai a design char-
in a acterized by playfulness and compromise. Al-
tight-f
which thoughtells
art deco in its Parisian mode was a popular w
tour de force and diffused with astonishing
well-made fig speed
magazinearound the world, on the critical and feintellectual
young plane, as commentator
desig Cervin Robinson has said,
"Art Deco and its journalism were
satirizing a pushover for
orn
Leavethe International
no Style critics with
spa their verbal at-
Hide tack and
those defense, their sloganeering, and their
u em-
Coverphasis onthem
simplification rather than ambiguity.'"24w
Mess Dugdale
them and like-minded critics made ambiguity
up
in design look ridiculous at best and like mincing
Now for
cowardice at worst. curv
Swags and fr
To be sure, many important designers who
worked in the mode of art deco were articulate in
Now for little
Now self-defense.
for Architect Ralph gidd
T. Walker argued
that designers had "come to a bend in the road, a
place in which to pause, where
Whoops! Tra- we can look back-
ward over the past and see its contributions and le
Tirra-lirra! at
the same time
Sanity look forward over the future and
may co
Ornament is
glimpse its possibilities." Thoughtful designers had
to realize that "while the desire to be economical in
What the cou
structure is laudable, it is not by any means the end
Art's the thin
of the story. . . . The fundamental, spiritual, and
Who'd suppos
intellectual needs of man can never be satisfied
Could concea
with the thin, austere design of the engineer-
A fewarchitect."month
Muralist and sculptress Hildreth Meiere
this time in
rebuked the "Left Wing Modernists," declaring,
Pope-had
"human nature demands interest and relief from r
furnishings: barrenness by some sort of enrichment." Among
Hence, Inhumanity, austere of Line, the middle-range architects and firms whose work
In Execution harsh, and in Design. she praised were the Voorhees, Gmelin, and Wal-
Be Chic, be Up-to-date, but still preserve ker firm, Kahn, the designers of Rockefeller Cen-
The softening Flute, the mitigating Curve. ter, and, above all, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue,
Be Human, Intimate, and even Funny, "the only man to be claimed by both sides of the
New, but Polite, for Manners Maketh Money.... great Traditional vs. Modern argument." Ar-
Let Germans storm. Who cares for what they say? chitectural journals repeatedly hailed Parisian-
We can be Functional as well as they.
We know our Modern stuff. We, too, can feel
The charm of Oil-cloth or of Stainless Steel.
23 Serge Chermayeff, "The New Building for the Daily Ex-
press," Architectural Review 72, no. 428 (July 1932): 3-14, pl. 11
How plain our Furniture; no Mouldings there. caption, additional inserted unnumbered pages; Michael Dug-
It's not too Intricate, nor yet too bare. dale, "Ornamentia Praecox," Architectural Review 72, no. 428
Thus we outstrip the Germans and the Dutch (July 1932): 4o; Michael Dugdale, "Safety First," Architectural
Review 71, no. 424 (March 1932): 122.
Severe as they, but with the Human Touch. 24 Cervin Robinson, "Buildings and Architects," in Cervin
Lo! Rectilinear the Cupboard climbs Robinson and Rosemarie Haag Bletter, Skyscraper Style: Art Deco
(Always politely moving with the Times). New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 28.

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 30 Winterthur Portfolio

style artdecolowed that exposition ... [the current] readiness to

ornamentation
qualities. In February
consider and adopt new forms (slight as that 1928,
may
editors of Architectural be) would have been impossible."27 Forum
views of floral The ornamentation
streamlined mode of art deco in the 1930s
gar Brandt, a fared key somewhat better, at least with a few critics.
designer w
tured at the 1925 exposition)
Cheney, who had nothing but scorn for the 1925
art deco commercial building
Paris exposition, zealously embraced the aesthetic
enue in New York: the "architects have struck a of streamlining. In 1936 Cheney and his wife,
new note in this example of conservative modern Martha, hailed streamlining as a "valid symbol of
decoration."25 the contemporary life flow . .. when it emerges as
One of the last and most articulate pleas for form expressiveness." Although the Cheneys ac-
cessation of the radical-traditionalist war came
knowledged that the symbols of streamlining were
from Charles R. Richards, director of New York's
sometimes abused by "superficial stylists eager
Museum of Science and Applied Art, who to ... make them a fad of the moment," nonethe-
con-
demned the "two sets of ideas that divide the ar-
less there comes a moment when "logical design
chitects, viz., dependence upon tradition as the
passes into the essentially unanalyzable region of
pure form creation . .. felt by the artist to be in
sole source of inspiration and the conviction that
harmony with some larger rhythm and order
design should be thoroughly adapted to modern
requirements. ... In each camp one or the other of
of the universe." The Cheneys developed this
metaphysical theme with explicitly religious
these ideas is held with such tenacity and intoler-
analogies: "When we see a functionally-formed
ance of the other that real progress is severely
useful product, smoothly encased in some bright
handicapped." Richards argued for a "rapproche-
ment": "We need to relinquish our extreme machine-age
at- material, corners rounded off, pro-
jections sheared away . . . the machine-conscious
titudes and bring the two opposing camps nearer
together."26 mind begins to relate all such products of scientist-
Countless middle-range designers strove to artist design back to the most conspicuous symbol
achieve such a rapprochement in the 1930s; "mod- and inspiration of the age, as the reverent
ernized" or "stripped" classicism was frequently medieval mind related everything to the symbol of
the preferred approach (fig. 6). Some designers the cross."28 Cultural historians have frequently
strove to achieve a thorough interpenetration of commented on the popularity of streamlining in
classical and modern principles (figs. 7, 8). Signifi- depression America and concluded that the re-
cantly, in both architecture and design they often lated themes of cohesion, unity, and smooth coor-
used the language of the 1925 Paris exposition to dination were inspiring in a culture seeking to
lend dynamism to their fusion of classical princi- transform disaster and trauma into an opportunity
ples and modern simplification of form (fig. 9). for twentieth-century pioneering and community
By the end of the decade, hostility among the rededication. Industrial designers themselves were
modernist critics toward Parisian-style art deco had often among the boldest and most flamboyant pub-
heightened. In 1938 Hamlin offered a lukewarm, licists of streamlining; Raymond Loewy became a
and half-apologetic defense, acknowledging that in celebrity on this basis.
addition to the new and creative flexibilities emerg- But the priests of radical and high-art modern-
ing in the modernized classicism that he admired, ism remained intransigent in their opposition,
there had been a "sudden waking up to the pos- even though the streamline practitioners bore the
sibilities of independent and creative design . . . credentials of industrial designers and had thereby
[following] the Paris Exposition of 1925.... Dislike apparently achieved the rapprochement between
as we may the overwrought eccentricities of much art and industry that Werkbund and Bauhaus the-
of the work at that show, it is, I think, indisputable orists had sought for years. Johnson disdainfully
that, without the flood of 'modernism' which fol- remarked, "principles such as 'streamlining' often

25 Ralph T. Walker, "A New Architecture," Architectural 27 Talbot Faulkner Hamlin, "A Contemporary American
Forum 48, no. 1 (January 1928): 1; Hildreth Meiere, "The Style: Some Notes on Its Qualities and Dangers," Pencil Points
Question of Decoration," Architectural Forum 57, no. 1 (July 19, no. 2 (February 1938): loo100.
1932): 1, 2; "Editor's Note," Architectural Forum 48, no. 2 (Feb- 28 Sheldon Cheney and Martha Cheney, Art and the Ma-
ruary 1928): 156 caption (emphasis added). chine: An Account of Industrial Design in Twentieth-Century
26 Charles R. Richards, "A Present-Day Outlook on Ap- America (New York: Whittlesey House/McGraw-Hill, 1936), pp.
plied Art," Architectural Record 77, no. 4 (April 1935): 228, 230. 98, 294, 102.

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Art Deco 31

Fig. 6. Fran

Fig. Fig.
7. 8.
Gazel
411/2"
signer, 1935
MuseumArt,ofS

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 32 Winterthur Portfolio

Fig. 9. Fellheimer and Wagner, Cin

(June 1933): 444-

receive homage complainedout of

that the reverence all
toward machinepr
applicability." John
materials McAndr
had nothing necessarily to do with func-
Johnson at the Museum
tional achievement-the actual deliveryof of ser- M
ment of architecture and industrial art, offered vices. Two French architects, Michel Roux-Spitz
specific case studies in absurdity, pointing out, for and Jean Porcher, made the point forcefully in
example, "streamlined paper cups, if dropped, 1929. Rejecting the functionalist slogans of Le Cor-
would fall with less wind-resistance," but were no busier as "absolute tyranny," they attacked the ar-
better "than the old ones for the purpose for which bitrariness of design practices that masqueraded as
they were actually intended, namely drinking."29 pure logic:
Loewy's streamlined, chromium-plated pencil
Le Corbusier's architecture belongs to a system. As in
sharpener was a favorite target for ridicule because the case of the architecture of tradition, it leads to the
its look-of-speed design seemed utterly fatuous to pursuit of arbitrary form and a formula. It is the con-
the purists. In contrast to "styling"-which the trary of, and no more realist than, academicism.
radicals considered no better than pandering to Whether he wishes to or not, he is impelled to design
middlebrow vulgarity-the Museum of Modern facades or ornaments to correspond with his ideal of
Art offered a "machine art" exhibition in 1934 that "modern" form. . . . Instead of curves, he may have
was limited to industrial parts-springs, propel- straight lines; in place of masses more or less elegantly
lers, and the like, presumably the stuff of authentic rounded-cubes; he may multiply unnecessarily the an-
and proletarian virtue. gles, corner windows, details not plumb, and substitute
wherever possible the vertical for the horizontal. And
Impious detractors (such as Cret) had already these new forms he will name "modern."30

29 Johnson, Machine Art, p. [io]; John McAndrew, "'Mod- 30 Michel Roux-Spitz and Jean Porcher, "Tendencies of the
ernistic' and 'Streamlined,' " Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art School of Modern French Architecture," Architectural Record
5 (December 1938): 2. 65, no. 4 (April 1929): 336-37-

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Art Deco 33

Much and 'Op,' with ourlater

present fling into the commer-
as cial vernacular," said Gebhard in 1969, the world
Reyner B
of of art history was "in the mood to visually
views thand in-
be "astellectually respond"
much to popular modernism of the
thetics
twenties and thirties: "we are now asfree to sample
comeuppan
other stylistic containers" besides the international
tratedstyle. The explosion ofbyinterest in art deco in the R
vationseventies, however, was more than just a sampling
that
the of exotic fare; it was also the kind of cultural
princip
epiphany that drives almost any
liness," sur historical revival,
that themachi
sudden remembrance of things past, the flood-
fect, ing back
and into consciousness of a lost period savor
m
The that evoked an age. The rediscovery of art deco
intell
provided the occasion
style incr for "word magic" and
poisonous litanies-threnodic lists that sought to elicit the
tween the radical modernists and the traditionalists flavor of the interwar era. In a long assessment in
cast many forms of middle-range contemporaneity the New York Times, Ada Louise Huxtable sang
into outer darkness. Gebhard maintains, "the in- the wonders of "elegantly packaged Lelong per-
tensity of the struggle between the High Art Mod- fumes, extravagant Hollywood sets, the clair-
ernists and the Traditionalists came close to being voyant Futurama, the great public rooms of the
a religious war." And although "the popularizers great hotels, Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles,
of Modernism in the 2os and 3os avoided much of Hugh Ferriss's New York, publications in stylish
this spiteful and vicious battle," the war continued Bernhard Gothic type, omnipresent glass brick
to rage. What mattered to most protagonists and and torcheres." Art deco was "the scent, the es-
antagonists alike was whether design had a cogent sence, the spirit of an art-historical moment."33
philosophy, meaning a strident or militant philoso- At the same time, historians of art and architec-
phy. All else was slovenliness. Satirist and com- ture moved beyond the defensive task of resurrect-
mentator Osbert Lancaster reflected the views of ing art deco-after all, how could a movement that
many in the late 1950s as he looked dyspeptically seemed to be emerging as the definitive signature
back on the "bogus Hollywood modernism,"of that
its age be illegitimate? The new academic parti-
"nightmare amalgam of a variety of elements sans of art deco joined in a widespread rejection of
derived from several sources." Its users, he com- the international style, in tune with the emergent
plained, had completely misunderstood "the Cor- postmodern sensibility. An opening salvo ap-
busier-Gropius school of architects." These "bars peared between the lines of a 1975 interpretation
of beaten copper," he intoned, "these sheets of of art deco architecture in New York-"Today,
black glass, these friezes of chromium pomegra- when we have had twenty years of the austere ar-
nates not only did not arise out of the demands of chitecture ushered in by Skidmore, Owings and
construction but had not the slightest shred of Merrill's Lever House, it may be refreshing to re-
tradition to provide a threadbare excuse for their examine a style that aims to be popular, entertain-
revolting existence."32 Neither orthodox in its ing, and urbane." Authors Bletter and Robinson
modernism nor stalwart in its traditionalism, art invited readers to "imagine architects producing
deco was relegated to no-man's-land-that is, until buildings that are 'modern,' rich in meaning, and
the revival of the 1960s and 1970s. sensuous," and suggested that "the real weakness
Much of the revival sprang from the Zeitgeist of of Art Deco architects may have been their lack of
the 1960s, the "liberating" search for alternative training in ... verbal defense of design." Indeed,
ways of perception, especially if this involved sid- the art deco architect was "archetypically" a "con-
ing with the underdog. "With the advent of 'Pop' vivial fellow" who "hadn't a chance" against the
"hostility" of the international style. In yet another
S' Gebhard, "Moderne in the U.S.," p. 5; Richard Guy Wil- appraisal, architecture critic Paul Goldberger
son, "Machine Aesthetics," in Richard Guy Wilson, Dianne H. acknowledged that art deco was back in vogue "in
Pilgrim, and Dickran Tashjian, The Machine Age in America,
z9z8-194z (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1986), p. 53-
32 Gebhard, "About Style," p. 35; Osbert Lancaster, Here, 33 Gebhard, "Moderne in the U.S.," pp. 18, 5; Ada Louise
Of All Places (1958), reprinted as A Cartoon History of Architecture Huxtable, "The Skyscraper Style," New York Times Magazine,
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1964), pp. 16o, 158. April 14, 1974, p. 58.

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 34 Winterthur Portfolio

part because International Sty

self fallen somewhat out of favor."34
An inevitable part of the revival involved the
analysis of art deco's identity, including the vexing
task of defining boundaries. But for every study of
the discrete stylistic influences and sources, includ-
ing Parisian "zigzag" and industrial streamlining,
and for all the remarks about the bitter polarities
in interwar design, recent observers have hastened
to stress the remarkably unifying tendencies of
art deco. "It pervaded every visual aspect of ex-
istence," said Huxtable in 1974, "from mon-
umental architecture and the decorative arts
to clothes, jewelry, furniture, interiors, toasters
and automobiles."35
Almost ten years later Wilson tried his hand at
defining art deco. Admitting that "as a historian,"
he "would have preferred for Art Deco to remain a
precise term referring to French-influenced de-
sign," Wilson proclaimed himself to be "enough of
a realist to recognize that the term has caught on."
His embrace of the term, however, was far more
than just an effort to make the best of the inevita-
ble; there was, in his view, a very strong element of
truth in the perception that the movement we call
art deco represented an important unifying in-
fluence. Consequently, "if we can use the term Art
Fig. to. Allen and Lutzi, City Hall, Burbank, Calif.,
Deco not to designate a specific style, but rather in
1941. (Courtesy, American Institute of Architects
the sense that it is inclusive and connotes the tre- Archives.)
mendous fertility of ideas, culture, and design, be-
ginning in the early 2oth century and reaching aornaphobia." What Wright achieved as an idiosyn-
peak in the 192os and 1930s, we will better serve cratic master was paralleled by a host of "convivial
our purpose." It is possible "to see in the work fellows" who, with exemplary flair, proceeded to
of very conservative American architects such as make their ways through the intellectual scorched
Arthur Brown, Jr., or John Russell Pope certain earth between the trenches of the conservatives
touches, ornamental details, the treatment of a and radicals. The buildings of the twenties and
wall-that indicates they were the product of the thirties in which classicism, futuristic fantasy
1920S and 1930s. It is equally possible to see in a streamlining, simplification of form, and Parisian-
very radical designer such as William Lescaze fea- inspired ornamentation are fused are too numer-
tures that might be identified as Art Deco. And ous to be consistently the product of chance or
certainly Frank Lloyd Wright is part of it."36 individual foible (fig. to). There was something go-
As we continue to refine our understanding ofing on between the poles of ideology, a vivid, con
tinuing, and pointedly self-evident demonstration
the 1920S and 1930s, it is likely that the middle-
range design will emerge more clearly than ever of the belief that powerful design inspirations need
as a genial fulfillment of the challenge posed not be inimical to one another. It would be a mis-
by Wright in 1930: the challenge to designers to take to ascribe one all-pervasive outlook to mul-
create "romance" to mediate between the "senti-titudes of art deco designers. And yet, in an era of
mentality of the 'ornamental' and the sterilityanxiety
of and hatred, a great many people were
struggling to get their bearings, to escape from the
influence of ruthless ideologies, to make their
peace with
4 Robinson and Bletter, Skyscraper Style, p. 3; Rosemarie the historical process, with all its chal-
lenges and
Haag Bletter and Cervin Robinson, "Skyscraper Style," Progres- terrors-above all, to enjoy the contem-
sive Architecture (February 1975): 68, 73; Paul Goldberger, "Art
porary scene while it lasted, to "face the music and
Deco," New York Times, January 31, 1974, p. 35-
35 Huxtable, "Skyscraper Style," p. 58.
dance." If only as a form of whistling in the dark,
36 Richard Guy Wilson, "Defining Art Deco," Art Deco the development of art deco in its historical setting
News
3, no. 3 (Fall 1983): 2. is a poignantly human tale.

This content downloaded from

200.130.40.193 on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:41:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms