The meaning subverts the form, and elegance of form is always capable of being corrupted by what meaning it delivers. “The first thing that we demand of a wall is that it shall stand up,” Orwell wrote in his critique of the painter Salvador Dalí. “If it stands up, it is a good wall, and the question of what purpose it serves is separable from that. And yet even the best wall in the world deserves to be pulled down if it surrounds a concentration camp.” Form cannot be separated from function.
