Craft, art and the pursuit of style

[hectorm]

The experience of style boils down, in my view, to the congruence between what one is and what one appears to be (=has and displays). We often write about "pulling it off" to wear this jacket or that ensemble: one man seems to able to "fill the clothes", while another is perceived to fail (with the same clothes).

First, leaving aside for a moment any attempt at defining style, I have to agree with Costi that focusing in this congruence between what one is and what one appears to be puts us on the right track of what we are looking for. To follow his lead, I could attest that just a couple of decades ago I could not easily pull off wearing things such as –amongst others- a seersucker or off-white linen suit, a Panama hat or a Fedora, spectators, an onyx ring, even a velvet smoking jacket and slippers at home. These are superficial examples but I can assure you that aging has played the trick. It´s not for me to say that age has graced me with real character but at least it has lead me to the congruence that passes for a manifestation of style.
Second, just objective congruence does not cut it for me. There has to be also some positive value to it in order to be called style. As in the example of the Massai warrior offered by Michael, behind that congruence we can find the positive values of their culture, good taste, and virtues. I resist the notion of congruence as style in a simpleton (or worse), just because he is what he appears to be.

[jscherrer]

Well said...congruence between the internal and external. Of course assuming that we want to display externally the best of who we are internally.

[Frederic Leighton]

[...] Interestingly, although I am advocating a practical approach in this topic - mastering the tangible, analyzable and communicable craft of dressing - rather than aiming for an elusive quality (which is, ultimately, somebody else's subjective experience of us), most contributions focus on that elusive thing which I am suggesting to forget about.

Dear Costi, I welcome your call to go back to the original topic of the discussion - mastering the tangible, analyzable and communicable craft of dressing.

I encourage my piano students to create every time new occasions to increase their familiarity with music and the instrument, even if at times they might feel like lacking the motivation. Increase your familiarity with the subject, leave the instrument open after playing, don't put the books away, even in the worst-case scenario of a terrible day you can still play for five minutes before going to bed, become friends with musicians, immerse yourself in music. More in general, imagine where you want to be and immerse yourself in it!

Few years ago, at the start of my Thirties, I had a wardrobe of about thirty suits, a dozen fedoras and half a dozen overcoats that I would wear exclusively on Saturday and Sunday. For five days a week I would wear t-shirts and jeans; tweed jacket in the colder months. One day, without much planning or thinking, I suddenly decided to get rid of all t-shirts and jeans and 'force' myself to wear a suit every day. A handful of years later is suit and tie 365 days a year. I have less than 10 suits in the wardrobe now, and 3 fedoras. It didn't hurt. That little encouragement was all I needed.

From those early days: handling and wearing vintage cloths taught me, in a relatively inexpensive way, what to expect from a tailor and from good fabrics, the colours I like the most, the cloths I feel most comfortable wearing and those that make me feel self-conscious. I 'trained' my audience, the people in my life, to accept my choices and gained enough confidence to cope well with criticism, when this comes.

Beauty is everywhere. Last Sunday I was leaving home early in the morning for my usual visit to the farmers market. Raw milk and organic croissant, to start with. As I come closer to the bus stop, I notice three peacocks on top of a scaffolding. Three peacocks on top of a scaffolding. At the second floor of a tall building the construction of which started few weeks ago, there are three wonderful peacocks with their deep-blue chests and green tails. They walk around cautiously, clearly paying attention to where they step and being concerned with not falling down on the busy road. At the bus stop nobody seems concerned with them; nobody seems amazed, entertained or concerned, or even aware. Everybody looks at the road to see if the bus is coming. I call the police: "Ehm... Good morning... I'm in x street... There are three peacocks on top of a scaffolding...". An unexpectedly polite answer: "Thank you for your call. We are aware of this; we are trying to contact someone to take them down."

[Costi]

It seems that perfection is attained, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.

And to prove him right, later comes van der Rohe and says irreducibly: "Less is more".

Thank you, Federico, for sharing this great journey of refinement (quite literally).

There is another lesson I learned indirectly from your posting. "Less is more" actually belongs to Robert Browning, who used it in his poem "Andrea Del Sarto - Called The “Faultless Painter” ". The "senza errori" painter, in Vasari's words, suffers because the likes of Michelangelo and Da Vinci are greater artists: his perfect paintings are lifeless. Their technique is less than his, but:

"[...] less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate’er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman’s hand of mine."

Perhaps the secret is to practise the craft (as you recommend to your students, too) with an eye beyond it:

"Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for? [...]"

And since we are talking about craft (aren't we?): "Practice makes perfect" - yes, it does, if you are not careful...

"[...] All is silver-grey,
Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!"

Part of the craft is to learn how to make "mistakes", to allow error to take place and be comfortable with it. This is not about the glued-on "beauty mark" on a perfect cheek, but the naturally occurring one. Throw away your eraser! The perfectionist sees the flaw in Raphael's painting:

"That arm is wrongly put and there again
A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines,
Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,
He means right that, a child may understand."

"Still, what an arm! and I could alter it"

"And indeed the arm is wrong.
I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see,
Give the chalk here quick, thus, the line should go!
Ay, but the soul! he’s Rafael! rub it out!"

And so, the peacocks on the scaffolding don't belong there. But why remove them?

[Luca]

Lovely stories, Federico, about style and peacocks.
In my profession, unlike yours, a fairly high degree of conformism is expected. The standard to which one conforms is enforced much, much less rigidly than once but it is also a debased standard. Yet, we can still ‘rebel’, within bounds, without risking too much that the client will remember the suit rather than the man.
Et voilà, back from a full day of client meetings where I was the only man in sight wearing a brown suit. Nobody, apparently, fainted or called the police. Bringing that small experience back to the subject of the craft of dressing, it was another illustration of the principle that if you want to deviate without overdoing it, everything else must be (and it was) exceedingly conservative (in the purely relative sense of the word). “Boring” shirt (light blue, plain texture, classic plain collar), tie (dark blue grenadine with white pindots), shoes (black).

[Frederic Leighton]

Inspiring contributions, Costi and Luca. Feeling at ease with imperfection and within enforced standards emerge as essential qualities.

The relationship between craft and art was also at the centre of the Manifesto of the Staatliches Bauhaus (Weimar, April 1919). Walter Gropius signs it with the compelling exhortation: so let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen!

[...] When a young person who senses within himself a love for creative endeavour begins his career, as in the past, by learning a trade, the unproductive “artist” will no longer be condemned to the imperfect practice of art because his skill is now preserved in craftsmanship, where he may achieve excellence.

Architects, sculptors, painters – we all must return to craftsmanship! For there is no such thing as “art by profession”. There is no essential difference between the artist and the artisan. The artist is an exalted artisan. Merciful heaven, in rare moments of illumination beyond man’s will, may allow art to blossom from the work of his hand, but the foundations of proficiency are indispensable to every artist. This is the original source of creative design.

So let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen, free of the divisive class pretensions that endeavoured to raise a prideful barrier between craftsmen and artists! (read it all)

[Frederic Leighton]

Et voilà, back from a full day of client meetings where I was the only man in sight wearing a brown suit. [...] if you want to deviate without overdoing it, everything else must be (and it was) exceedingly conservative (in the purely relative sense of the word).

[Costi]

Thank you for the words of Gropius, Federico - much in the vein of what I'm trying to say (and much better written). I would underline these words only:

raise a prideful barrier

It reminds me of pianist who once said that, when playing Mozart, you don't have time to be proud of yourself. She was over 90 at the time - I suppose some things just take time...

[Frederic Leighton]

[...] Part of the craft is to learn how to make "mistakes", to allow error to take place and be comfortable with it. [...]

Salvador Dali:

Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.

[Costi]

Salvador Dali:

Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.

Sublimation is part of the royal art where the true gold is made. Of this Freud knows nothing, worse still, he barricades all the paths that could lead to true sublimation. [...] It is not a voluntary and forcible channeling of instinct into a spurious field of application, but an alchymical transformation for which fire and prima materia are needed. Sublimation is a great mystery.

[hectorm]

Salvador Dali:

Mistakes ... Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.

Sublimation is part of the royal art where the true gold is made.

Not that I measure myself against Dali or Jung, but if I may add something in terms of this thread: I believe that if you can transform a mistake into something socially more acceptable and culturally higher, then we may be facing someone with true Style.

[Costi]

I would agree, hectorm. That burning fire makes all the difference, as well as seeing only "materia prima" where others stop as if already at destination.

Dali seems close to the truth when he writes of the "sacred nature" of mistakes. But what I appreciate in Jung's understanding is that one cannot actively (and transitively) sublimate anything (through rationalization, etc.); instead, if the fire is there and one allows it to work on the "materia prima" (the revelatory mistake), then it sublimates. IF it does... which is why it is "a great mystery".