Citation
Muñoz Jiménez, María Teresa
(2006).
Written on the threshold.
In:
"Ungrammatical landscape = Paisaje agramatical".
Diputación de Granada, Granada, pp. 125-136.
ISBN 84-7807-419-8.
Abstract
One of the most productive discoveries of art and architectural criticism is the comparative
reading between different situations. It is an approach that does away with
all conventions and destroys any attempt to codifing the future. It also reveals the
futility of established styles or movements. In the early 20th century, the Russian
Formalists spoke of the dissimilarity of the similar in literature and more than a few
studies on the visual arts have used the comparative method, from Heinrich
Wolfflin to Robert Venturi. But something more has to be added, personal biography.
The involvement of the individual, their name and their life, in the history
of art bursts in with all the force of what is real, with no need for credibility, because
it merely is what it is. The histories of architecture and art tell things in a believable,
perfectly connected manner, without the fits and starts of personal biography
- when this appears we find ourselves in a different sort of situation.