Ernest Flagg on Art

"The qualities called personal... and the ability to impart them, in greater or less degree, is the gage of genius in art."

"Greek art was extremely simple and direct; both in design and construction the Greek mind abhorred complicaton."

"1st. Saving of time, trouble, and money in the preparation of plans by the module system, and the standardization of parts and methods."

"Style... the very hall-mark of great art... there is little use in trying to define style."

"The Greeks were men of sense; if they used the system they did so for a purpose, as artists rather than mathematicians and imperceptible irregularities could not affect that purpose."

"Clarity or Decision. ...without it there is uncertainty, hesitation, obscurity, instability... incomparable with good art. The meaning and object of the design should be clear... it should be frank, as the French say."

"Unity. ...Unity of purpose is shown by continuity, or the proper relationship of the parts with each other, and with the whole as one sees it best expressed in the human form. Unity of mass is obtained by giving predominance of mass to some one feature..."

"Imagination... implies originality. It results in a reflection... of the working mind of the designer. ...Imagination may be called the dynamic force in art. ...It is the quality which distinguishes the artistic from the photographic representation of nature."

"Interest. ...a design to be great must have great interest. ...the most potent of all ways to impart interest is to endow the design with beauty of form, and... the one which makes the strongest appeal to human interest and admiration is physical beauty in human shape."

"These houses are intended to have stone walls. ...The fact that a stone house is better in many ways than a wooden one, and also more economical in the long run has, for the most part, been overlooked... The conditions are... ripe for a change from wood to stone or other incombustible material, but it will doubtless come about slowly."

"2d. Saving space: By the utilization of the large volume of space contained in the slopes of roofs... by the reduction of floor thickness... by the utilization of space for lockers, cupboards, closets, etc... by the use of thin partitions... and by elimination of corridors... so that the least possible area may be required for communication."

"From time to time a square has been opened here, a park there, a street cut through in one place or widened in another, but these improvements have been entirely local in their effect, and have failed to change the general appearance of the city. Even the greatest of all these changes, the laying out of Central Park, was unfortunate, to say the least, for it serves to aggravate one of the worst features of the original plan, viz., the failure to provide a central artery of communication worthy of the coming city."

"The system of building, described in this work, is intended for repetition. It would hardly pay to adopt it in its entirety for a single house if the matter were to end there. Where the processes and apparatus is used, over and over again, great economy should result; but for a single building, the trouble and expense of introducing so many new or unusual features and methods, might well offset the benefits which should accrue under more favorable conditions. Standardization both of parts and workmanship plays a great part in the economies obtained and standardization implies quantity."