by selmerv

A marketable ware should allow the broadest possible use and elicit no associations other than what the object’s purpose and material permit. The place for which it is designed is not determined; as little known are the qualities of the person whose property it will be. Thus it should possess no characteristics and local colour (in the broadest sense of the word), but should have the quality of harmoniously agreeing with every surrounding.

These conditions seem to correspond completely with the products of Oriental industry, and even more so when the latter are not intermingled with the splintered remains of annihilated, higher art phases, either their own or foreign ones. Oriental products are most at home in a bazaar, and there is nothing more characteristic of them, as we indicated before, than their convenient accommodation to every surrounding. The Persian carpets are suited to a church as well as a boudoir. The Indian ivory boxes with inlaid mosaic patterns can be incense holders, cigar containers, or work boxes, depending on the inclination of the owner.

Semper, “Science, Industry and Art,” 141

by Aamir Choudhry