1907 Art Nouveau Design Book Borders Stencils Tile CD

Preserving the Past, Digitally

From the Preface:

One of the "notes" of recent decorative art has been its comparative disuse of the elements and forms of historic ornament, and its return to Nature, and especially to floral forms, for inspiration. Now it is seldom that the plant most suitable for a particular design is in season when it is wanted, and it is often so difficult (sometimes impossible) to find a drawing of the ornamental side of many plants, that the authors venture to hope that designers of all kinds will welcome a series of more or less decorative drawings and photographs from nature. Their work is, however, intended in the first instance, for students, and it was felt that to them a collection of suggestive designs would be even more useful than the naturalistic drawings.   The authors have tried, therefore, to show how their plant forms might be simplified and converted into ornament, and have included designs for simple space filling, and also for such processes as gesso, stencilling, wall papers, textiles and so on.