Automobiles and the philosophy of ornament

Abstract

Automobiles partially share the nature of furniture with other objects, in addition to ornamental characteristics that make them a genuinely aesthetic object. Some of these characteristics are inherent and others are circumstantial (relative to their obsolescence and inappropriate use). Nevertheless, it is an object habitually excluded from the artistic representation. However, we may find an interesting world for artistic imagination, sometimes full of wonderful expressions, in the design of car bodies, and mainly in some very small details. On the other hand, being an essential and useful tool, make it a suitable topic for the analysis of the inexhaustible relations between useful and the beautiful.