On Ornament by Karl Philipp Moritz // Edited by Clara Pacquet // Preface by Danièle Cohn
This is a new, revised, and expanded edition of Sur l’ornement (2008, out of print). Published by Presses de l’ENS, Éditions Rue d’Ulm, in the collection “Versions françaises.”
The debate over ornament, made familiar to us by the works of art historian Aloïs Riegl (1858–1905) and Adolf Loos’ famous pamphlet Ornament and Crime (1908), as well as the positions of modernist and minimal art artists, is part of a long history. The Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Ornaments by Karl Philipp Moritz, published in 1793, represent a pivotal moment in this history.
Moritz uses empirical research and description to build a theory of ornaments through the study of motifs and knowledge gained during a long journey in Italy and observations of Berlin residences. He positions ornaments as a crucial component of aesthetics as conceived in the Enlightenment era. Unlike allegory, ornaments are free forms that do not imitate or signify anything. They reflect, within the framework of defining beauty, the anthropological dimension of the need for art and contribute to the promotion of imagination.
Written in the context of the Berlin Academy of Arts, this text is educational in purpose and also serves a political function during the increasing industrialization of the applied arts around 1800.
Release date: May 9, 2024.