Ethnic by design [antikvár]

¦ V/' INTRODUCTION i) ® ^ I» 10 fef we would return to a more healthy condition, we must even be as little children or as savages; we must get rid of the acquired and artificial, and return to and develop normal instincts." Designer Owen Jones, writing in The Grammar of Ornament in 1856, anticipated by some 50 years the revolution in perception that was to change the face of Western art and expressed the fundamental conundrum that continues to tease civilization: the more refined and advanced the world becomes, the deeper people need to dig beneath the surface to find their true values. A century after the painter Paul Gaugin dreamt of finding "ancient, sublime, religious things" in Tahiti we are once again searching for the power of the primitive, digging deep into our roots in an inevitable reaction to the surface glossiness of design over the past decades. If Gaugin felt the need to escape from the progress and technology of "civilization" more than 100 years ago, how much more desperate must be our need today, when the computer and the machine threaten to take over completely. As technology becomes capable of creating soulless pei^ fection, so we hunger for imperfection — for the rough beauty that bears the imprint of the fallible human hand. Prcviotls page and kjt: In Christian Astugiia'iciHe's Paris apartment the neutral hamwny of cased insects, rope creations and African sctdptures is offset by die intense blue of the lights. Right: Grand Parisian architecture is a surprising bur stunningly cjfcctii'e backdrop and counterpoint to Astuguci'icille's uniqne coiled designs, inspired by priniitiiie cultures.