LOOKING FORWARD TO LOOKING BACKWARD
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analogical thinking which at its best may be called
geistreich,
but
hardly profound; sometimes,it is based on downright misunderstand-
ing. Take for example his deliverance on Renaissance painting that
"this putting together of hitherto unrelated lines and solids within
the rectangular baroque frame-as distinguished from the often ir–
regular boundaries of a mediaeval painting-was contemporary with
the political consolidation of territory into the coherent frame of the
state."
If
by this reference to politics, the forms in painting seem to
arise from a field beyond the canvas, although the connection is left
vague, on the other hand the political movement becomes stylistic and
characterological, like the work of art. But no historian of art will
take the comparison seriously, not only because of the flimsiness of
the verbal analogy of the political and the pictorial forms and the
ambiguity of the stylistic terms, but because of the familiar facts that
1) the rectangular frame is a common mediaeval type, 2) the non–
rectangular forms are often regular and coherent, .3) the perspective
organization of the pictorial space is known long before the political
changes in question, 4) baroqu _ art also cultivates the irregular and
non-rectangular frame, 5) and finally, the baroque is used by Mum–
ford to designate art from the 15th down to the 19th century, a period
during which perspective, frames and composition undergo pro–
nounced changes and include irregular, boundless and mobile forms.
In the same way, because the processes of mining are "destruc–
tive" and "anti-organic," he explains the "general loss of form
throughout society" in the 19th century by the predominance of
mining; "the destructive imagery of the mine ... is carried into every
department of activity, sanctioning the anti-vital and the anti-organic."
We may disregard the mysterious animism of these judgments. But
it
is
apparent that the good architecture of the past has required
quarrying and lumbering, which by Mumford's criteria destroy na–
ture, and that cultures sustained by hacking activities have not been
without form. Interestingly enough, it is in the practical metal archi–
tecture of the 19th century that Mumford finds the most satisfying
formal order and the "organic" tendencies of the future. And Im–
pressionist painting, which is for him the culminating point in form–
lessness, he also values as a manifestation of the organic, as a healthy
reaction against the griminess of the industrial city.
Architecture and Society.
Although he regards architecture as a
simple reflection of society, their relations are anything but clear in
Mumford's account. He does not limit himself to architectural forms
or uses depending directly on the social objects in question, but dog–
matically derives the artistic value of buildings from their social origin.
At one point, having condemned the society of the post-mediaeval
