By Patrick F. Cannon

In these grim days, I remind myself that there is joy available. And his name is Mozart. At the moment, I have two CDs in my car that remind me of his genius – one of string quartets; the other, two of his piano concerti (the 19^th and his last, the 27th). I let them repeat over and over again as I motor along. While he did occasionally let the dark in – Don Giovanni, the Requiem – I think he found it difficult to restrain the immense joy he felt when he was composing.

Beginning with simple pieces when he was 5 (which his father transcribed), he would go on to compose nearly 800 works before he died at 35. Talk about a work ethic! How many of today’s “serious” composers come close? Aaron Copeland, a fine composer to be sure, managed only about 150, and he lived to be 90. The only American composer who can be compared to Mozart is Irving Berlin, who did the words and music for approximately 1,500 songs in a career that lasted nearly 60 years. (It occurs to me that if you could only listen to the music of Mozart and Berlin, you could survive quite happily.)

Most people’s idea of Mozart comes from Amadeus, the 1979 play by Peter Shaffer, made into a highly-successful movie in 1984, directed by Milos Foreman. It painted Mozart as a goofy genius given to scatological jokes, driven to an early death by Antonio Salieri, a pathologically-jealous fellow composer, brilliantly acted by F. Murray Abraham (who got the Oscar for his efforts). Of course, it was all made up by Shaffer, but so effectively that many people took it as gospel.

What did he die of? At this remove, it’s impossible to say, but I love this one: apparently, he suffered frequent attacks of tonsillitis. Then, in 1784, he developed post-streptococcal Schonlein-Henoch syndrome which caused chronic glomerular nephritis and chronic renal failure, which led in the end to a cerebral hemorrhage. Another theory says he died of chronic kidney disease. Take your pick. People died then of things that are just minor annoyances today.

Another who died young was our greatest composer, George Gershwin. He was only 38 when he died of a brain tumor, a glioblastoma, the same kind of always-fatal cancer that killed Teddy Kennedy, John McCain and my wife, Jeanette. He was almost as prolific as Mozart, composing some 500 songs; several symphonic works, including the famous Rhapsody in Blue; and the groundbreaking opera, Porgy and Bess. You could be forgiven if you preferred to substitute him for Berlin (although to be fair, I should point out that Berlin did both music and lyrics; Gershwin’s brother Ira did most of his).

Of course, you might prefer Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, or Brahms; or Cole Porter, Richard Rogers, or even Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber. The point is: on days when the Arab-Israeli conflict has again boiled over, and the once-reliable Republican Party has descended into an embarrassing anarchy caused by a lunatic leader, we need to tune all of it out, if only for an hour or two, and remind ourselves that true nobility and beauty still exist.

Copyright 2023, Patrick F. Cannon

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By Patrick F. Cannon

I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. According to New York Times critic-at-large Jason Farago (rhymes with “Chicago”), “We are now almost a quarter of the way through what looks likely to go down in history as the least innovative, least transformative, least pioneering century for culture since the invention of the printing press.”

Thank God Farago is paying attention. I confess I wasn’t aware of how bad things had become. Of course, I feel duty bound to confess that I more or less gave up trying to be up-to-date on cultural trends around the turn of the century. Before that, I made some effort to keep track of the newest writers, musicians and visual artists. I read the Times, subscribed to the New Yorker, and trekked to museums and galleries not only in Chicago, but during my travels. I still do visit museums, but am inclined to search out the tried and true.

It’s no wonder then that I recognized few of the names Farago mentioned, Amy Winehouse being one exception. According to him, her “Back to Black” album was the “first major cultural work of the 21^st Century that was neither new or retro – but rather contented itself to float in time, to sound as if it came from no particular era.” Although I’ve only heard a few of its songs, that’s a pretty heavy load to carry. I did check out some of the artists he does admire, including sculptor Nairy Baghramian, and multi-medium artist Pierre Huyghe. Their work seemed little different from other abstract artists working today (or yesterday, for that matter).

The real problem with his arguments is his concentration on what’s happening today, as if our culture can be isolated in time. In fact, our culture is the accumulation of all that’s gone before. One example of a breakthrough work of art he cites is Manet’s “Young Lady in 1866,” which he says “was a radical eruption of temporal specificity.” But Manet himself admitted the debt he owed to Velazquez; indeed the Art Institute of Chicago exhibited his “Aesop” next to a similar painting by Manet (I think it was “Beggar with Oysters”), both almost life-sized vertical compositions.

Almost all works of art owe something to what came before, and we are perhaps the least able to judge the ultimate worth of what’s being created today. Let’s take Manet again. He was considered too radical for the annual Paris Salon, which valued the immense, highly-populated and highly-polished historical and mythical scenes that you can still see at some European museums, particularly the Louvre. Most people now see them as ludicrous, and much prefer to search out Manet and the Impressionists, who were also ridiculed by the establishment.

As to myself, I find little to admire about most contemporary artists. To me, abstract art has long since exhausted its potential, and artists have their eyes focused too closely on market forces. Many fiction writers don’t see the forest for the trees – how many novels set in academia can be written? And where has wit gone in popular music? Couldn’t someone as obviously talented as Taylor Swift stop obsessing about her love life? And isn’t there a reason why concert goers would rather hear Mozart than John Cage?

Of course, I could be totally wrong. A hundred years from now people might well look back at the 21^st Century as a Golden Age, an age when our culture reached a new peak. Or maybe not. We just don’t yet know.

Copyright 2023, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

If you’re a Democrat or a left leaning independent, you probably think former President Donald Trump is guilty of all or at least most of the 91 criminal charges he faces. If you’re a Republican, you think the whole thing was dreamed up by vengeful prosecutors, who conveniently all happen to be Democrats. On the other hand, you’re absolutely certain that President Biden and his family have enriched themselves by trading on his positions as senator, vice president and now president.

Of course, both sides could be right, or partially right or just plain wrong. As for myself, I think Trump is likely guilty of most of those 91 charges; but I frankly have no clue about Biden. But after a long life studying politicians and politics, nothing surprises me. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives is determined to prove that Biden accepted bribes and other payments to make things happen or not happen for interested parties. If they can agree on a new Speaker, maybe they will.

In the end, my opinion about Trump’s or Biden’s guilt or innocence is just that – an opinion. And if the Republicans in the House vote to impeach Biden, the chance that he would be found guilty in the Senate are no better than the two times Trump was found not guilty during his two impeachment trials. In a nearly equally divided Senate, finding the two-thirds necessary for conviction is a pipe dream. The only time in recent history it might have been possible was forestalled by Richard Nixon’s resignation.

Anyway, the Senate can’t send you to jail; only a jury of your fellow citizens can do that. And that’s where it gets tricky. Many years ago, I was the foreman of a jury in a murder trial in the Cook County courts. The venue was the famous main courthouse at 26^th & California in Chicago. The trial took the best part of a week, and involved a married couple on trial for murdering a neighbor. It seems a group of African-American residents in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on Chicago’s far south were gathered in a parking lot having a few drinks.

According to witnesses, the wife was falling-down drunk and one of the partiers was making fun of her, to which she took umbrage, complaining to her husband. He promptly went to his unit, fetched a metal baseball bat, returned, and proceeded to beat the offender to death. The prosecutors were able to convince several of the witnesses to testify to the altercation and the fatal beating.

To their credit, the defense attorneys did their best to impugn and confuse the witnesses, but to little effect. When both sides rested their cases, the judge spent some time lecturing us about the laws involved, and how to weigh the evidence. When we went to the jury room, I was chosen as foreman, I think because I was older and had white hair. We took up the wife’s culpability first, and decided she was so drunk that she wasn’t capable of participating in the actual killing.

Everyone agreed that the husband had done what he was charged with. That should have been that, but no. One of the jurors, a young African-American woman, said she would never vote to convict him because he had actually come to the defense of his wife, which should not only not be condemned, but encouraged in the African-American community. I won’t bore you with all the arguments we used to convince her to change her mind. They didn’t sway her, and the judge finally, on my recommendation, declared a mistrial in his case. The not guilty verdict for the wife stood.

Do you think – with Trump apparently in a dead heat with Biden for the 2024 presidential election – that the courts will be able to find 12 citizens who will agree to impartially look at the evidence and vote accordingly? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. One would think the government has a better chance in Democratic DC than in Republican south Florida, where the judge is a Trump appointee (with a fine name, I might add). Remember, it only takes one holdout to hang a jury, unlike the United Kingdom, where a judge may decide to take a majority verdict. And I keep remembering OJ Simpson, clearly guilty, but acquitted because “if it don’t fit, you must acquit.”

If I were the government, I would at least try to make a deal with Trump. Drop the documents case, and offer a deal on January 6. Plead guilty to those charges, in return for no jail time and an agreement that Trump never again run for Federal office, or even endorse a candidate. Frankly, I don’t think Trump’s ego would permit him to do this, but it’s at least worth a try. The alternative is going to be a long and agonizing nightmare that would further damage our increasingly fragile democracy.

Copyright 2023, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

By all accounts, Donald Trump is a fairly decent golfer. Rory McElroy, after playing a round with him several years ago, thought he probably played to a handicap of 10 or 12. In general, that would equate to an average 18 hole score in the mid 80s. Not bad, although he’s older now. Of course he might keep his score low if he simply moved to a forward tee, which is certainly allowable, and even encouraged for someone his age. For you non-golfers, most courses have at least two tee boxes (or places where you hit your first shot); some, four or even more.

Nevertheless, Trump is a notorious cheater, the reports of his transgressions so numerous that they could fill a book, and actually did – sportswriter Rick Reilly’s Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Donald Trump. Not that he thinks he’s cheating; he’s so bereft of conscience that taking advantage of others is just normal for him. Based on long experience with him, I’m sure his lawyers are now getting their money up front.

Here are just a couple of examples of his golf ethics. Playing in a foursome with Trump, Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson, Brad Faxton reported that Trump’s score somehow didn’t count two balls he hit into the water. Sports announcer Mike Tirico, who routinely covers golf, said that Trump once threw Tirico’s ball off the green into a nearby sand trap. Trump actually owns numerous golf courses, where his caddies say he routinely improves his lies (not his utterances, but the location of the golf ball). He has also been seen to kick his errant shots out of the rough into the fairway.

For most golfers, honesty by their fellow players is assumed. This does not mean that a group that plays together regularly might not agree on some deviations from the strict rules. For example, they might decide that a player may have one “mulligan” per round. That simply means a do-over. Say I hit a ball in the water. With this agreement, I can hit another ball without penalty. Most golfers would save their mulligan for just such a reason, since you only get one.

Improving your lie is a no-no, unless a storm has left the course like a muddy bog. Then the rules of golf permit you to pick up the ball, clean it, and replace it in a dryer place, no closer to the green. You can also concede a putt for one of your fellow golfers, but not for yourself. If you watched the recent Ryder Cup on television, you will have noticed that this is occasionally done in match play, generally for a putt of less than two or three feet.

For Trump, the rules of golf – just like the rules for anything else – are meant for suckers, not for him. And had he limited his cheating to the golf course, he’d be just another jerk nobody wanted to play with. But no. Cheating is a way of life for him – in marriage, business, and in government. How else can you explain those 91 counts, which his loony followers claim are just politically motivated? Perhaps they haven’t noticed that some of the suckers who played the game of life with him are copping pleas, hoping the government will grant them a mulligan for actually telling the truth about their former boss – truths Trump’s supporters seem unwilling to believe. Or maybe it takes one to know one.

Copyright 2023, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has thrown in the towel and said he would no longer enforce a dress code on the Senate floor. In case you didn’t know it, members were expected to wear a suit and tie when doing the nation’s business. Apparently, some senators, most notably the junior senator from Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, who prefers shorts and hoodies, chafed under this tyranny.

As it happens, Fetterman looks uncomfortable no matter what he’s wearing. He towers over his fellow legislators – he’s 6 feet eight inches tall and a bit portly – and doesn’t seem capable of buying a suit that fits, despite his wealth. Nor does he look much more at ease in those shorts and hoodies. What 54-year-old man does?

I imagine he got out of the habit of wearing suits when he was mayor of Braddock, PA; coincidentally, the town were I was born. As a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School, he thought he could revitalize this dying Pittsburgh-area mill town. He failed, even though he got a good deal of publicity for giving it the good old college try. Braddock had about 20,000 folks at its height; in the 2020 Census, they could find only 1,721.

When my father served two terms on its city council just before and during World War II, its steel mill was belching fire and smoke 24-7. Prosperity persisted for a few years after the war, then, like all of Western Pennsylvania, a steady decline began. Anyway, we moved to Chicago in 1946, where he had a good job offer. He died when I was 12, but I rarely saw him dressed in anything but a suit and tie. His idea of casual was taking off the tie and suit coat. I’m sure he never wore shorts.

Maybe the Senate should have casual Fridays. When my employer did this, a colleague of mine complied by simply taking off his tie. He just could not bring himself to don a pair of chinos and a sports shirt. Can you imagine Chuck Grassley in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt? How about Mitch McConnell in jeans and a pink polo? Or Susan Collins in pedal pushers and a halter top? Imagine the floor of the Senate looking like a Pickleball court in Naples, Florida. Oh, the horror!

I have written about this a few times, but let me remind you that I think respect for decorum is still important – maybe even more important in a world of declining standards of courtesy and appearance. I just got back from France, where I visited several historic churches and cathedrals. Even though I’m a lapsed Catholic, I automatically removed my cap when I entered. Needless to say, I was in the minority. To most visitors, it was just another interesting tourist attraction. I was on a riverboat cruise. At only two dinners were we asked to wear a jacket (but no tie). This was widely ignored.

Many of you will remember the days when first-class restaurants required gentlemen to wear a jacket and tie. Some even had a supply of ill-fitting “house” jackets and ties to provide to customers who dared show up sans proper attire. Now? In deadly fear of losing even one customer, even slobs wearing backwards ball caps are permitted to spend hundreds of their dollars on sparse “tasting” menus.

There are some holdouts. I often drive past the venerable River Forest (IL) Tennis Club. Members and guests who play there must wear whites. I applaud them for holding the line. After all, there are plenty of places to play the game dressed like a slob. We all know that the quality of members of Congress is at its lowest ever, but they could at least pretend to take their jobs seriously enough to dress like ladies and gentlemen.

Copyright 2023, Patrick F. Cannon

Vini, Vidi, Vici

I just got back from a river tour of Burgundy and Provence in France. Aside from drinking a good deal of the local wine, and eating too much good food, I was struck most by the pervasive influence of the Romans. We started in Lyon, where Roman remains include what’s left of a theatre. France’s third city, Lyon sits at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone Rivers (the Soane is a tributary).

            The Soane took us to Burgundy and Beaujolais. The highlight was Beaune, and a visit to its famous hospital, built in the 15^th century for the poor and needy. Its patron was Nicolas Rolin, chancellor of the Dutchy of Burgundy, who no doubt hoped its foundation would put him in good with the Lord. We should recognize his impulse to wash away his sins with cash. In our day, we might mention the names Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford in this regard.

            But it was along the Rhone that we found the most pervasive Roman influence. Arles, perhaps best known for its association with Vincent Van Gogh, was founded by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C.. It was no accident. The Rhone leads to the Mediterranean, and was a logical highway to the interior for the expansion-minded Romans. A highlight is the Amphitheatre, built around 90 A.D., which has been largely restored, and remains a venue for bull fights and other events (they don’t kill the bull in France). It’s a smaller version of Rome’s Colosseum, seating about 20,000.

            In Orange, Roman remains include a triumphal arch with some if its reliefs intact, and a typical Roman theatre, one of many in the Roman world still used for theatrical and musical events, in this case an annual opera festival. Indeed, on the day of our visit, stage hands were working to set up an event. It was typical in major Roman settlements to have a theatre, arena and forum, just as existed in Rome itself. “Bread and circuses” were thought to keep the locals from being too restive under Roman rule.

            But the highlight of the trip was the famous Pont du Gard, a bridge over the Gardon River. part of the aqueduct that carried water for some 30 miles from a spring to the Roman settlement of Nemausus, modern day Nimes. Built in the 1^st Century, it’s a monument to Roman engineering skills. Like most of the Roman structures in the area, it was constructed of the local limestone. Amazingly, to our eyes, the stones were fitted so carefully that no mortar was necessary.

            Of course, we also saw more than our share of medieval landmarks, including the papal palace at Avignon, and several cathedrals and churches. A common theme was the pillaging and destruction of religious buildings during the 1789 French Revolution. The papal palace was largely stripped of its iconography during those years. This is the same kind of impulse that caused the Taliban to destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, and the new Protestants to repurpose Roman Catholic churches in Northern Europe during the Reformation by stripping them of what were, in many cases, great works of art.

               I should also add that the landscape, with its vineyards, hills and forests, was an inspiration to not only Van Gogh, but Gauguin, Cezanne, Picasso and many others. As it happened, it was the harvest season. There is no mechanization; the grapes for the great wines of France are – by law – hand-picked. We saw some of this, and tasted the results. Just as the Romans did in their five centuries of rule.

Copyright 2023, Patrick F, Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

Have you noticed the paucity of French names among your fellow citizens? We have numerous examples from Germany, Great Britain, Poland, Mexico, China, India – well, you name it, we have it.

            But why no DeGaulles, Rollands,  Chevaliers, Petains, Chiracs, Foches, or de Lattre de Tassignys, for that matter? I have long puzzled over this, but in a flash of enlightenment (just in time for this article), the answer became clear. It’s simply this: the typical French person would chafe (is that a French word?) under the reasonable restrictions we place upon ourselves.

            Of course, on our own continent we have French speakers in Quebec. Notice that many of them refuse to speak English to their fellow Canadians (or is it Canadiens?), and have on several occasions tried to secede from Canada itself. Although you may catch sight of a Quebecer wintering in Florida, one suspects it’s only because they can’t afford Martinique.

            I have been to France several times; indeed, I once spent a year there, courtesy of the United States Army. One thing I noticed almost immediately is that the average French person walks along with his or her head down, while tourists are looking up to gawk at the Eifel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe. One reason, of course, is that they’ve seen this famous landmarks many times. But the main reason they look down is to avoid stepping on doggy doo, whose volume increases as the day goes on.

            Now, to their credit the French are dog lovers, but the thought of bending over and picking up their poop would be anathema to them. This is the job for the municipal authorities, who hose down the streets and sidewalks early every morning, thus providing a clean canvas for little Fifi and her friends. No doubt also that there is the inevitable union to make sure no one takes jobs away from the Pooperintendants.

            As to smoking (who can forget film actor Jean Paul Belmondo with a fag dangling from his lip) the French have among the toughest smoking bans in the world, which apparently are routinely and increasingly flouted.

            Here’s an example closer to home. Several years ago, my friend Jerry McManus was giving an architectural walking tour in Oak Park to a group from France. Not everyone spoke English, so they had an interpreter with them. As was customary, Jerry began with a list of simple rules (don’t walk on the grass, don’t look in people’s windows, etc,) before he started the tour. He noticed that the interpreter wasn’t passing these simple and sensible rules along to the group. When he asked why, he was told: “You don’t tell adults what to do!”

            Now, we pride ourselves on our individual freedoms, but the French tend toward anarchy. They also believe themselves far superior to other beings, although they don’t mind us as much as they do the English. They are willing to be among the barbarians for short visits, but the thought of actually immigrating to the outer world must fill them with dread. So, we can continue to stride confidently along our sidewalks without fear (except perhaps near the French consulate or the Alliance Francais).

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Copyright 2016, 2023, Patrick F. Cannon   

Stop! I Don’t Care!

By Patrick F. Cannon

There was a time when “what happens in the privacy of the bedroom is no one’s business but those who inhabit it.” Ah, those were happy days, since I didn’t think that it was my business to know how people – including my friends and family – achieved their sexual pleasure. As another saying went, “everything’s OK as long as no one gets hurt or killed.”

            Now, as you may have noticed, almost everyone – particularly celebrities – is eager to let you know all about their sexual identity. Publicists must now have to take a course on the various possible permutations of sexual identity to be able to properly advise their clients. God forbid they wouldn’t know the difference between bi-sexual and non-binary.

            There was a time, of course, when homosexuality was against the law. Those were bad days, when people like the actor John Gielgud and mathematician Alan Turing were both convicted in England for something over which they had no control, their homosexuality. Thankfully, those laws no longer exist. But then, as now, the wise advice that “you can’t legislate morality” was widely ignored.

            I confess I was largely unaware of the different ways people get their sexual pleasure until I was in high school. Even then, it wasn’t clear to me what gay people actually did to each other. Having been educated in Roman Catholic schools, I’m sure I was told that whatever they did was a sin. These attitudes did not survive actually knowing and liking gay men and women.

            So, I have no quarrel with anyone’s sexuality. I just don’t care! Why would anyone think I would? But they do! And almost without exception, the organs of public information are only too happy to keep me informed. Once staid journals like the Chicago Tribune and New York Times, both of which I read daily, now find space to let me know that Actor X has announced that he/she has decided to transition to the canine world (just kidding, I think).

            And the other day, the Times had a first-person piece in its lifestyle section about a women who decided that she would do female impersonators one better by becoming a male impersonator. Apparently, her boyfriend found this a great turn on. Perhaps it gave him an opportunity to explore his latent homosexuality! This and similar stories that often appear in the “newspaper of record” give new meaning to that claim.

            Stop it! I don’t care! Nobody should care, but I guess they do. I long for simpler times when I actually thought there were only two sexes. When I spied a comely girl or woman, my lascivious thoughts could be concentrated in only one direction. Now, what one sees may not be what one expects or gets. And if it’s confusing to me, I can just imagine what some kid entering puberty must think when faced with a bewildered mind and bewildering society which now claims that one’s sex is up for grabs. And there doesn’t seem to be any escape! Can it be that too much knowledge can actually be a dangerous thing?

Copyright 2023, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

Did you see Donald Trump’s Georgia mug shot? Of course you did. Even if we try to hide, he insinuates his way into our daily lives. I wonder how many times he practiced that scowl? I can see him in his New Jersey hideaway, rehearsing in front of a full length mirror. He’s wearing the inevitable blue suit and red tie (does he even own a brown or grey suit?). His hairdresser is in the background, ready to apply a bit more spray if needed.

            It’s important that he gets the look right. After all, this is the first time a former president is going to get his mug shot taken. Another first, along with being impeached twice, and facing 91 felony indictments in four separate jurisdictions. Some of us might be concerned at that much legal attention, but Trump seems to thrive on it. After all, he has turned all of this into mounds of cash. And this time, his mug shot will be monetized into caps, coffee mugs, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and beer Koozies (if you don’t know what that is, you’re probably some Commie wine drinker).

            Trump sees no reason why his loyal supporters shouldn’t pay his legal fees. Since they are sucker enough to do it, he won’t have to go to the trouble of stiffing his lawyers (who, I’m sure, are asking for upfront payment, just to be on the safe side). The Politico web site publishes an average of several polls, which show that Trump has 55.4 percent support among Republicans. Even though only 24 percent of registered voters are Republican, that’s still millions of potential customers.

            Nationally, Trump consistently has support of about 43 percent of registered voters, trailing President Biden by about 1.5 percent. The nearly 15 percent who are currently undecided will eventually tilt the balance. In the meantime, there are currently eight Republicans who are running against Trump. Strangely, when asked at the recent debate whether they would support Trump if he got the nomination, fear of alienating his supporters encouraged six of the eight to raise their hands. Ron DeSantis apparently looked around to see who was raising their hand. When it looked  like the “ayes” would have it, only then did he raise his, a fine example of political courage. If they all love him so much, why are they running?

            In the meantime, and to be fair, more than 50 percent of Democrats wish President Biden would decide not to run. He’ll soon be 82, and would be 86 if he wins and survives a second term. In the tit for tat that characterizes our politics these days, Repbulicans in Congress are busy trying to prove that he used his political offices over the years to unlawfully enrich himself and his family. His son Hunter has clearly crossed a few lines over the years. Since they control the House of Representatives and have subpoena power, the Republicans have every opportunity to prove their suspicions. So far, no dice.       

            To be honest, nothing surprises me about our politicians, Joe Biden included. If he did what they think he did, he would be no more qualified to be president than Trump. At the moment, however, I struggle to think who might be.

Copyright 2023, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

My partner, photographer James Caulfield, and I are working on a major revision – really a transformation – of a book we did nearly 15 years ago on one of America’s greatest architects, Louis Sullivan. The photo above by Jim is of the 1899 Bayard-Condict Building in Manhattan. As you can see, minimalism wasn’t Sullivan’s forte. In fact, it would have been inconceivable to  him not to enhance his buildings through appropriate decoration.

            Those angels are no thoughtless addition. When built, the Bayard-Condict was meant to house tenants mostly related to printing and publishing, messengers of the word if you will. Since angels are considered the messengers of God, and similar messengers exist in other religions and cultures, their use here is meaningful. And it was  no accident that Sullivan almost always used Lions – symbols of strength and dignity – in his many bank designs.

            By the time he died in 1924, architecture had already started its transition from the decorative to the functional. In this and other countries, Art Deco was in the ascendency. While “Deco” was part of its name, its decorative flourishes were pared down, almost cubistic in form. In the 1930s, forms were further pared down, not only in architecture, but product design as well. The “streamlined” railroad trains – the New York Central’s 20^th Century Limited was typical – were good examples of what came to be known as Art Moderne, which encompassed not only trains, but buildings, coffee pots and toasters.

            Lurking in Weimar Germany during most of those years were young architects who would eventually make pure functionalism the dominant Western style – what has come to be known as the International Style after the 1932 exhibition of that name at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  Among the architects exhibited,  Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and ended up in America, Mies (as he’s commonly known) in fact settled in Chicago, where he headed the architecture school at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He also, beginning in the late 1940s after construction resumed after World War II, transformed commercial and institutional architecture. As he was quoted as saying, “less is more.” (Frank Lloyd Wright was quoted as quipping “less is less.”)

But Mies meant it. His 1950 860-880 North Lake Shore Drive apartment buildings in Chicago were copied over and over again, not only by Mies, but most of  America’s and Europe’s young architects. Alas, not all of them had the master’s genius for scale and detail. A perfect example is the soulless building that replaced Sullivan’s Chicago Stock Exchange Building, needlessly torn down in 1972. No one goes out of the way to see its lobby, but people do travel to see the recreation of the Stock Exchange Trading Room at the Art Institute.

   There are signs that the rational sometimes gives way to the urge to decorate or at least enhance. Post-Modernism had its day, consciously resurrecting some of the shapes and symbols of the past. And it’s a rare blank wall in Chicago and other cities that hasn’t caught the attention of the graffiti tagger or muralist. While much of this is mediocre or blatantly political, there are always exceptions, and some works of real talent.

Then there is Frank Gehry and his copiers. While not strictly speaking decorative in the Sullivan sense, they are decorative in form. It took him awhile to get there. Much of his early work is either aggressively industrial (his own home) or miscarried, like his deconsructivist “Fred and Ginger” building in Prague, which is supposed to show a dancing couple. But I have always thought Gehry was really a frustrated sculptor, and his famous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain is really a piece of sculpture enclosing a building (one of his actual sculptures, the Gold Fish, adorns the sea front in Barcelona).

Of course, his work is only possible because of complicated computer-assisted calculations, carried out by this dedicated staff. When people go out of their way to see his work, there must be something there that touches them, just as so many travel to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s works. Wright could never quite abandon decoration, no matter how simple it might seem. And most people stubbornly prefer brick and stone over steel and glass for their own homes, to the consternation of many architects.

The kind of molded terra cotta ornament that Sullivan produced isn’t coming back, but just the other day I passed a steel and glass apartment building with a colorful mosaic applied to one wall. Passersby who would normally have walked past the building without a second glance, instead stopped to study it, just as do those who unexpectedly come upon the Bayard-Condict in lower Manhattan.

Copyright 2023, Patrick F. Cannon; photo copyright 2023, James Caulfield