Présentation de l'éditeur :
In Ruskin’s work, Lars Spuybroek has discovered a
treasure trove of concepts in which the beauty of things is determined
by a combination of variation, imperfection and fragility. Through these
qualities, things once again earn our sympathy and friendship. A
sympathy, Spuybroek argues, that not only occurs between human beings
and things but also between things themselves: “Sympathy is what things
feel when they shape each other.” Like Ruskin, Spuybroek seeks a world
that is dedicated to composition and beauty, where things are governed
by what Ruskin called the “law of help.”
Step by step, Spuybroek addresses Ruskin’s
five central dual themes: the Gothic and work, ornament and matter,
sympathy and abstraction, the picturesque and time, and ecology and
design. He wrests these concepts from the Victorian context and compares
them with ideas of later aestheticians and philosophers. The Sympathy of Things
is the log of an exploratory journey into beauty. Spuybroek writes in a
clear, accessible language that is by turns precise, elegant and
moving, zooming in on the fascinating details of Gothic architecture,
complex African textile patterns and the wallpaper designs of William
Morris. The Sympathy of Things will leave no one unaffected. The
book is not a mere critique but rather the first fully thought-out,
positive aesthetics of a new generation who face the task of sustainably
designing the 21st century.
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