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do people know you can pay for custom pieces
Like, if a door knocker is that important to you, like an upper-middle class 19th century homeowner, you can just... pay 500$ or so for a nice one. I promise you that the 19th century homeowner paid much more for their's, adjusted for inflation.
Would it have been a custom piece in the 19th century though? They would have been in demand enough that it seems reasonable that they could have been hand-made in enough bulk to make them better priced than getting it made fully custom now.
it's not like there was an economy of scale to speak of, the ones in demand were likely the equivalent of $500 today. a door knocker is still purely a luxury item.
There kind of was
There would have been hundreds of people in the community who spent their lives doing metal working and casting
Nowadays for a vision job like that’s you’ll have to find one of a handful of specialists in your area.
Same with glass blowing and other artisanal work.
And good chance this knocker was made from a mold.
can't make a model like that with a solid mold. it's too far from a convex hull. you need to sand-cast it, cut off the pouring channels, then polish up the rough surfaces. then you need to heat up the knocker part in order to bend it into shape in the mouth. even if you cast multiple heads at once that's several days of highly skilled work per product. that doesn't come cheap.
You can simplify this and eliminate the forging by just casting more parts and assembling them. From looking at it I thought the teeth were removable and the fastener is hidden by the beard but other similar cast knockers seem to just make the ring out of two parts. https://www.chairish.com/product/14868315/antique-satyr-face-wram-horns-iron-door-knocker
They did have an economy of scale at least to a degree. Manufacturies were lousy in much of Europe by the high medieval to late age of sail depending on region, and the Portuguese spread said manufacturing techniques as far as India.
Would it have been a custom piece now? Granted, I didn't find an exact match, but there are some damn similar ones on Aliexpress for like $40.
Generally, high-quality pieces would have been made by artisans (and thus usually custom), not factory-made. The high demand meant that the skills to make these pieces were more commonly pursued by woodworkers, thus making a larger labor pool (and so, cheaper labor), but the technology available and higher price of resources means that it would have required more expense in the form of materials and more man-hours to create the product.
Is "useless" a bad word now too?
it's gotta be rage bait at this point
Yes. In hustle culture useless is basically a slur. God forbid you can't be used for anything.
Why is the latest trend on the global information sharing network to nonsensically obfuscate the information that you want to share?
I ~~fucking~~ ~~hate~~ this ~~shit.~~
Careful! You don't want to offend the advertisers!
My take is that capitalism is the cause.
Hard to justify buying the nicer door knocker when you don't even own the house you are renting.
How about in neither willing not capable to pay a few k for a fucking door knob just for it to be custom made and beautiful.
This dip shit is comparing what would nowadays be Trumps or Musks door.
How about we create a world in which you didn't need a degree for beautiful things to be created?
I don't know why I find this so infuriating to me, it feels soo wrong on so many levels.
One reason Trump is hated by the New York elite is that when he put up Trump Tower he completely demolished the building that was already there. He repeatedly promised to preserve the iconic façade, but then claimed it was 'too expensive.'
Because it is.
That being said new art (on french, can't spell) was a time where regular people had that wealth. But brutalism etc. took it away.
Also the was little craft in mass produced ornaments.
Incentives are what killed it
"Show me your incentives and I'll tell you the outcomes"
Modernism and brutalism are both solving an economic problem. It's to make a building as "occupiable" as possible. It has no soul or defining features for someone to hate, so it appeals maximally to as many people as possible. It also saves a lot on labour, maintenance, and material costs when designing and constructing a new build.
Also, who the hell cares about the next tenant? They aren't paying the construction bill, and they're going to buy it at the price I want anyways because this building is modernist/brutalist and is as fungible as possible.
Modernism and brutalism are both solving an economic problem. It’s to make a building as “occupiable” as possible. It has no soul or defining features for someone to hate, so it appeals maximally to as many people as possible. It also saves a lot on labour, maintenance, and material costs when designing and constructing a new build.
"Tell me you don't know anything about modernism without telling me you don't know anything about modernism."
First of all, modernism was definitely not trying to blandly appeal to as many people possible. It's a reaction against traditional architecture and is therefore inherently contrarian. And especially so for brutalism (which is a subcategory of modernism rather than its own separate thing, BTW): you cannot tell me people don't hate brutalism, LOL!
Second, modernism is often more expensive than traditional styles. Many of the elements of traditional architecture became "traditional" for practical reasons: sloped roofs shed water even when they aren't perfectly constructed. Decorative moldings exist to cover up gaps and obscure corners that aren't quite square. When you get rid of that stuff, you make the building a lot harder and more expensive to construct because everything has to be perfect: your flat roof needs to be absolutely water-tight, your carpenters have to work to much tighter tolerances, you need a damn skilled plasterer to finish your drywall perfectly fair and smooth without using ceiling texture to hide the unevenness, etc.
I feel Brutalism gets a bad rep, being judged by its worst aspects. The core philosophy of it is to create buildings which expose their construction materials transparently to the user. Within that, there is plenty of chances for artistic expression and beauty. The problem is that many architects who produced brutalist buildings chose to take bland approaches to brutalist buildings, specifically to match the modernism it was derived from.
There is still space within brutalism to make beautiful buildings which are still transparent about their construction and materials. To do so, one need only seperate it from its modernist roots.
Even if it wasn't called a degree as such, artisans had to study under masters for years to learn the craft.
But aren't people with art degrees the ones designing the new sterile, soulless things?
That's because the people signing their paltry checks demand it.
Then demand something else as a customer.
No that’s the industrial designer who only gets a budget to make it functional and mass producible.
We're censoring "useless" now?
Censoring causes engagement.
I would be shocked if simple door knockers weren't common side-by-side with the ornate door knockers throughout history. But being simpler and of a lower quality, they would neither be as notable nor endure until today.
Why are we censoring usernames
It is weird internet compulsion people have. "Oh no I better protect the identity of this person who posted a public comment on a public platform."
What about censoring useless?
Why are people censoring at all?!
we keep moving the craft of being human into that of being technology
Art naturally proliferates as people have more free time. Right now we’re all overworked and overstressed, so much less art happens.
I like the right one better.
Having an art degree does not make one an artist.
Not saying that art degrees are useless, just that they don't inherently result in any art being created.
They want the AI to create the left one, then blame artists for the right one.
The reason behind the change is industrialization. The right one is just a regular handle with wider appeal, the left one needs more specialized equipment and is only applicable to people wanting that style of handle, not a handle of function.
I hate that minimalist designs aren't acknowledged as artistic.
In my opinion, it is no different than the ai idiots who think all art needs to be hyperrealistic; That good art is hyperrealistic.
When you alnost can't have anything but 'minimalism' (not sure if most of the things that you can get count as minimalist and not just extremely utilitarian) it kind of destroys the feeling.
(not sure if most of the things that you can get count as minimalist and not just extremely utilitarian)
Definitely utilitarian. Stuff that's actually minimalist requires thoughtful design and precision construction and is therefore actually pretty fucking expensive.
Idk, I am not an artist or anything. I just look at stuff and like different things in different moments and settings, like everyone else.
I am just sick of the disrespect for art in general. I am not a good critic but I am good enough to acknowledge that art is not only made for me and my taste.
There's a beauty in simplicity
One kid with an art degree, another on the way. Art is life.
When we are free to pursue what our heart desires, more art happens.
Have won in cost, and have lost in cost.
That knocker is almost perfect
There just needs to be an even tinnier knocker in the tiny demon’s mouth