There is a new spirit: it is a spirit of construction and of synthesis guided by a clear conception.
Whatever may be thought of it, it animates to-day the greater part of human activity.
A GREAT EPOCH IS BEGINNING
Programme of l'Esprit Nouveau.
No. 1. October 1920.
Nobody to-day can deny the æsthetic which is disengaging itself from the creations of modern industry. More and more buildings and machines are growing up, in which the proportions, the play of their masses and the materials used are of such a kind that many of them are real works of art, for they are based on "number," that is to say, on order. Now, the specialized persons who make up the world of industry and business and who live, therefore, in this virile atmosphere where indubitably lovely works are created, will tell themselves that they are far removed from any æsthetic activity. They are wrong, for they are among the most active creators of contemporary æsthetics. Neither artists nor business men take this into account. It is in general artistic production that the style of an epoch is found and not, as is too often supposed, in certain productions of an ornamental kind, mere superfluities which overload the system of thought which alone furnishes the elements of a style. Grotto-work does not make Louis Quinze, the lotus is not the Egyptian style, etc., etc.
From a tract issued by
l'Esprit Nouveau.
