Brief but interesting article in the London Times on an alleged Cologne Cathedral Controversy. I must say that I don't see it as much of a controversy seeing that the allegation of the Richter design as feeding into some kind of Islamic influence is just nonsense. The abstraction of late 20th century modernism, at least Richter's variant of it with its emphasis on randomness and chaos, is nothing akin to Islamic art with its emphasis on the precise and orderly use of ornamentation and calligraphy to convey a clear and rational, if non-figural, view of the world. Both may be 'abstract', but their views of the world are... well... worlds apart.
Posted by Tom at September 4, 2007 07:57 PM