Oblivion
Despite Guimard's innovations and talent, the press soon tired of him—not so much with his work, but his personality. His relationship with the clergyman who commissioned him to build the Humbert de Romans Concert Hall (arguably the most complete expression of his Art Nouveau style) became acrimonious by the time of its completion in 1901, and the clergyman left France. Within five years the magnificent concert venue was demolished; it is now only known by photographs and articles from art journals. A large number of his Paris Métro station entrances, including all of the large pavilions such as the one at Bastille, were demolished. The only full, roofed enclosures left are the original one at Porte Dauphine and the reconstructed ones at Abbesses and Châtelet, although many of the fenced entrances remain or have been rebuilt.
Guimard's work is itself victim of inherent contradictions of the ideals of the Art Nouveau style: his best creations remained unaffordable to the general public, and his attempts at standardization of materials, parts, and measures never could keep pace with his stylistic changes. Guimard's fear of war and the Nazi Party's anti-Semitism (his wife was Jewish) forced him into exile, and he was largely forgotten when he died in New York during 1942.
Read more about this topic: Hector Guimard
Famous quotes containing the word oblivion:
“If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,
When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallowed cities up,
And mighty states characterless are grated
To dusty nothing, yet let memory
From false to false among false maids in love
Upbraid my falsehood.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“... how often the Presidency has simply meant that a man shall be abused, distrusted, and worked to death while he is filling the great office, and that he should drop into unmerited oblivion when he has left the White House ...”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs:
Despite the artful tensions of the calendar....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)