By William Justema. Reinhold Book Corporation © 1968. 240 pages. Hardcover. Fully illustrated in black+white, with pattern designs from around the world. Paintings, textiles, porcelain, drawings, wallpaper, etc.
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Excerpt:
Modern art is the celebration of design. If the reader finds this statement self-evident he need not read the next few pages, for they are, to some extent, the synopsis of a familiar story. If, on the contrary, he questions the statement, I think that what follows will be of interest. All art, always, has depended on the elements and the devices of design for its effectiveness, but at certain times this dependence has gone unnoticed. That may be the situation at the moment. When cults are strong -- whether they are cults of religion, statehood, literature, nature, or science -- men are more aware of art's "subject," and its exegesis, than they are of art's purely structural and ornamental properties.
The repetition of simple markings is the art expression most common to all primitive peoples; if any single spirit pervades modern art it is its devotion to primitivism. This was not evident in the Impressionists, for they considered themselves scientific, but as their stippling technique was successively broadened by Van Gogh, Renoir, Bonnard, and so many others, it became evident that an even distribution of shapes and colors was a hallmark of the modern canvas. This particular effect, that of a surface under uniform tension, is again gaining prominence as art enters new relationships with workshops and with industry. Mechanical means of production and the use of helpers increases. One wonders if it is all a Futurist gesture -- for the Italian Futurists under Marinetti, prior to the first World War, were similarly entranced by machines -- or whether it presages a truly impersonal production-line art. If it does, we are ready, or almost ready. Op and "reductive" art have solemnly discovered the polka dot and the stripe; the discovery of repeating patterns is just around the corner. But some difference still remains between a patterned picture or object intended to be shown singly and a continuous pattern designed for manufacture. No special disciplining is required of one; the most exact specifications must be met by the other. There is also the past to compete with. Whereas a young painter may feel safe in ignoring the history of his craft, assuming that all he needs to know has rubbed off on him, historical patterns of all periods, while perfectly visible, do not always reveal their secrets automatically.
Hence this book about them.