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Henri van de Velde against “the degrading levels of easel pictures and drawing room statuettes”:

‘In assuring you that we can make our homes the direct reflection of our own wishes, our own tastes, if we will but choose, i know the answer you are going to give me is that it is impossible. It is only impossible so long as we go on resigning ourselves to the repression of our own personalities and accept the human environment imposed on us with the same mute submissiveness as dogs do their kennels and horses their stables. And this simply because of the unreasoning belief that very few people were born with the gift of self expression – which is not true, and could only be true if civilization had deprived us of a capacity even our primeval ancestors possessed. Will no one stand up to assert the consciousness of having an aesthetic conscience of his own and bring some spontaneous echo of his inner being, some genuinely individual contribution, to the furnishings of his own home?’

- from Henri van Velde, “Memoirs: 1891-1901″, via http://www.socialfiction.org/crystalpunk/

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