“Louis H. Sullivan: Investigation of a Second French Connection”

AboutAn article examining a previously unstudied 1893 French-language manuscript held in the Sullivania archives at the Art Institute of Chicago's Burnham Library — a handwritten revision of Sullivan's 1886 prose-poem essay "Inspiration," not (as earlier assumed) a mere translation but an independent theoretical reworking. Weingarden argues the 1893 document sharpens Sullivan's underlying philosophy of art (the union of the artist's soul with nature) into more explicitly didactic form, coinciding with the international acclaim his ornament received in France — particularly through his work on the Union Centrale's exhibition headquarters, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs — and situates Sullivan's aesthetic theory alongside contemporary French Art Nouveau and Symbolist thought. The piece connects directly to Sullivan's earlier 1874–75 architectural training at the École des Beaux-Arts.

PURL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-9808%28198012%2939%3A4%3C297%3ALHSIOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N