Still, if we compare today’s arts and crafts with the work done 20 years ago, we will not fail to appreciate for a moment the rich blessing that the arts and crafts have bestowed in intellectual terms as well. The artistic craftsmen’s sense of form, which had almost faded away, has been enlivened again. Moreover, at least this one area has witnessed the awakening of a pronounced interest in art in all quarters, as a result of which one can hope for a gradual strengthening of our people’s appreciation for the actual, or the high art. That craftwork has assumed a position of power within the consciousness of artists themselves can be seen in its influence on architecture and the plastic arts.
Let us turn to [contemporary] architecture. Like the fine arts of the nineteenth century in general, it exhibits no organic connection to its eighteenth-century counterpart. The [French] Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had torn tradition to pieces, and academic research on antiquity had prepared the ground for something new. In architecture, this something new blossomed in our “classicizing architecture,” of which Schinkel was the major exponent. Starting where the ancients had left off was an abstraction; the historical sense proceeded forward from antiquity. In the process, one arrived at the manifestation most closely related to antiquity, the Italian Renaissance. With this, the way was paved, even in France, in the Netherlands, and above all in Germany, for a search for the link to the creative activity of today. It was the arts and crafts that sped the shift from the Renaissance to the Baroque and at the same time from a strictly constructive to a decorative style. Today, the Baroque prevails. The Rococo, however, is already peering in from all sides. All the while, important branches of our architecture along the Rhine and in Hanover continue to thrive merrily on the foundation of the Gothic. So now then, whence would a New German style arise, if one were to arise at all? Most likely, its seeds lie near that group of master builders who are seeking to infuse the enticing designs of the early German Renaissance with a modern spirit. After all, they seem to be initiating a process like the one that produced something truly national for us during the period of art’s greatest unfolding.
Of all art forms, the sculpture of our century was able to train itself most directly on antiquity, which, unfortunately, was badly misunderstood by the majority of its admirers on account of the vast number of superficial copies that have survived. Schadow, the creator of a monumental sculpture that strives recklessly towards recognizability, countered the classicism of Thorwald, which is comparable to Schinkel’s, with something national. Rauch combined both elements, achieving unity at least on the outside, and thus established a canon that was embraced for decades. Today’s sculptors, though more so in Berlin and Munich than in Dresden, have once again become accustomed to the objective contemplation of nature, and the creative activity of those “who have a say” is characterized by a realism that is sometimes moderate and sometimes bold. In this context, the excitement that the question of polychrome generated among sculptors – a question simulated by aesthetics and one that would have hardly gained its current significance had it not been compounded by the emphasis on the decorative of which we have spoken – is characteristic of our times. That there is a future for colored sculpture can no longer be denied; how much monumental sculpture will gain from polychrome remains to be seen. For the time being, polychrome (once again in connection with arts and crafts) is supported mainly by small sculpture, which has been revitalized. And small sculpture, incidentally, will allow sculpture to achieve more popularity than it enjoys right now.
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