Proficiency in a craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the prime source of creative imagination. Let us then create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist!
Interpretation
Mastery of skills is crucial for artists to unleash their creativity.
Walter Gropius emphasizes the importance of skill proficiency for artists, suggesting that true creativity stems from a solid understanding of one's craft. He advocates for the creation of an inclusive community of craftsmen and artists, free from class distinctions that hinder collaboration and mutual respect.
In practice
This quote can be used to inspire art students in a workshop about mastering their techniques.
The ultimate aim of all artistic activity is building! ... Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all get back to craft! ... The artist is a heightened manifestation of the craftsman. ... Let us form ... a new guild of craftsmen without the class divisions that set out to raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! ... Let us together create the new building of the future which will be all in one: architecture and sculpture and painting.
A modern building should derive its architectural significance solely from the vigour and consequence of its own organic proportions. It must be true to itself, logically transparent, and virginal of lies or trivialities.
The utilization of flat roofs as 'grounds' offers us a means of re-acclimatizing nature amidst the stony deserts of our great towns; for the plots from which she has been evicted to make room for buildings can be given back to her up aloft.
Architecture begins where engineering ends.
Today the arts exist in isolation, from which they can be rescued only through the conscious, cooperative effort of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an entity and in its separate parts.
Good architecture should be a projection of life itself, and that implies an intimate knowledge of biological, social, technical, and artistic problems.
Marijuana is a useful catalyst for specific optical and aural aesthetic perceptions. I apprehended the structure of certain pieces of jazz and classical music in a new manner under the influence of marijuana, and these apprehensions have remained valid in years of normal consciousness.
Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither.
I have had three masters, Nature, Velasquez, and Rembrandt.
The artist beholds in nature more than she herself Nature is conscious of.
Lets just say that I think any person who aspires, presumes, or feels the calling to be an artist has a built-in sense of duty.
A work-room should be like an old shoe; no matter how shabby, it's better than a new one.
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