Sometimes we write the wrong thing about Wright. One of our dutiful and studious readers pointed out a faux pas in our recent "Wright meets Disney" post. We were a little too broad in our statement about what we were describing Wright to have said at his Disney Studio meeting. Here's what our reader states, should have been said...
"Wright did not rail 'against the ignorance of the masses' as you wrote in your post. He specifically did the exact opposite. This exchange specifically refers to SOME not ALL people:
AUDIENCE: Do you find it is true that there are a number of people who are not willing to accept modern architecture in the same way that are not willing to accept modern music?
FLW: It is just because they are ignorant because of their ignorance and stupid because of their ignorance. They don’t know and they just can’t see and why worry about it?
As you well know, ignorance is a lack of knowledge. Stupidity is something else, usually caused by an unwillingness to do something about their lack of knowledge. This is the point I believe he was making.
He also said: 'I have found that every time the American businessman is given a chance to choose between the right effect and a useless thing he will take the right thing. I think the American woman is the same way. Of course, she is the cup, the bowl, the conserver, and much more likely to succor to imaginative things than a man. But even she has pretty good sense concerning this thing we call the artistic." and later he said, "You would be surprised (and I have been continually surprised) at the amount of intelligence posses by the people you wouldn’t think had it. You would be surprised how almost-as-intelligent-as-we-are most people are. I have great faith in that.'
His view was that it was the artist duty to lead the public, 'I think you’re going back on your public when you try to find out what the public wants and give it to them. No public knows. As compared to the fine thing they might have. They don’t know what they miss. Show them that thing which they miss. Explode once or twice and see what the reactions are.'
To reiterate his view he said: 'I wasn’t conscious of the people asking for it (streamlining). And you mustn’t be here either. If you give them the right thing – quality – the people know quality when they see it – they know it the minute they see it. They know it in anything they come up against. They might not be able to analyze it, but they hold to it and they respond to it.'
I think if read this again you will agree with me that he was not denigrating the public as a whole. He thought the public, in general, would accept modern if it was quality and not designed by committee. He did denigrate those whose vision only looked backwards in time.
Please fix your post to reflect these facts."
Consider this post a retraction of that original inaccurate statement. Thanks for keeping us honest and please feel free to let us know when we make mistakes--we're human, too!
Comments