The judicious eye - Joseph Rykwert

Is architecture art? This vexed question has been posed since the 1700s, when – breaking from earlier centuries in which there were no divisions between visual artist, architect, and engineer – architects and laypeople alike began to see these vocations as distinct. Exploring how this separation of roles occurred, and how in the twentieth century the arts and architecture began to come together again, The Judicious Eyeis the definitive history of the relationships between painting, sculpture and architecture as they have shifted over the past three centuries. Joseph Rykwert locates the first major shift during the Enlightenment, when key philosophers drew implied and explicit distinctions between the visual arts and architecture. As time progressed, architects came to see themselves as part of an established profession, while visual artists increasingly moved toward society’s margins, widening the chasm between them. Detailing the eventual attempts to heal this breach, Rykwert concludes his book in the mid-twentieth century, when the artistic avant-garde turned to architects in its battle against a stagnant society. The Judicious Eye, then, provides a necessary foundation for understanding architecture and visual art in the twenty-first century, as they continue to break new ground by growing closer to their intertwined roots.