ABSTRACT

Marie Frank’s chapter describes the little-known but significant influence of the late-nineteenth-century design ideas of Denman Waldo Ross (1853–1935), a painter, collector, and educator, who formulated a “theory of pure design” in the 1890s. Although subsequently eclipsed by the design agendas of the Modern Movement, Ross’s ideas were prescient and notable for their trans-historical and cross-cultural scope. Challenging twentieth-century skepticism about the notion of “beauty,” which Ross did not share, Frank’s essay raises questions about the pedagogical approaches that followed his and the legacies we have inherited from them.