Page 73 - Demo

71Remington, Jasper Co. (671.12)To promote his new design ideas (for both products and buildings), Gropius founded the soon-to-be-famous Bauhaus school in Germany. At the same time, in America, architects such as Louis Sullivan began embracing a similar point of view, declaring %u201cform follows function.%u201d Following a lead firmly established by the Bauhaus movement, design schools on both continents began using an %u201cengineered perspective%u201d in their training. This led to the rise of Modernism%u2014an approach which affected nearly all aspects of contemporary design. In architecture, this resulted in rectangular, box-like buildings, sheathed in glass and steel%u2014often known as the International Style. Painting was also directly affected by these new grain elevators. Between the two World Wars, a group of American %u201cPrecisionist%u201d painters were caught up (along with the rest of the country) in an %u201cAmerica first%u201d attitude. Artists, such as Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler, saw grain elevators and factories as symbols of America%u2019s ingenuity, power, and potential. They portrayed the proud, understated magnificence of these buildings with a carefully crafted, yet bold, painting style%u2014a style that stressed basic design elements such as rectangles, triangles, cylinders, and lines. While their paintings always included a surrounding cityscape or countryside, they contained no people%u2014their focus was on the monumental quality of these uniquely Americanmade %u201cthings.%u201d In time, this Precisionism evolved into Abstract Art where there was no setting, and nothing was easily recognizable. In Abstract Art, what mattered was simply the shapes, colors, and their arrangement with each other.Today, in the early 21st century, many older grain elevators are poorly maintained or abandoned. Yet, even in decline, they still have the power to affect and motivate artists. While they are no lon,ger capable of influencing contemporary design, nor are they examples of an American industrial utopia, they have become symbols of the inevitability of decay. To photographers, printmakers, and painters all across North America, these peeling buildings are powerful metaphors for the passing of family farms, local industries, small businesses, even entire towns. At the same time, they%u2019re nostalgic reminders of what once was.For me, I%u2019ll always be struck by how these simple structures%u2014created solely to store and move grain%u2014have affected so many people, in so many places, in so many, varied ways. I earned an Art degree nearly 35 years ago, and much of my sense of design comes from the simple, powerful principles of the Bauhaus%u2014principles inspired by grain elevators.