Art Nouveau Book covers, by 'Decorative Designers'

I've been a book sniffer for a long time. There, I said it. I like to wear a trench-coat and sneak into the back of the used bookstore and stick my nose in dusty old books. New, old, it doesn't matter. I still remember the smell of my brand new school books from when I was a kid. Before we get started, the answer is no, they don't make them like they used to. There are many reasons for that, but here's the short version:

Until the 19th century, books were sold unbound or sewn into simple paper covers. A collector of books would commission the local bookbinder to come up with a binding for all the books of his library. By about the 1860s, soon after the American Civil War, cloth bindings became popular and began to feature gilt stamps, blind embossing and flamboyant custom designs. As binding technology advanced, so entered the Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements creating an artistic confluence that produced extraordinarily beautiful book covers in a short space of time. Then came paper dust-jackets which, alongside a change in public taste, caused the decline of these decorative cloth bindings. That was the end of that.

"Most significant in the last decade of the [Nineteenth] century, particularly in America, is the rise of the artist-designer. From the late 1880s until about the start of World War I, book covers reached new levels of sophistication through highly professional layouts and stylized pictorial representations.

"Architects, landscape painters, illustrators and graphic artists alike were drawn to book design. While some of these designers would be responsible for only a handful of covers, others were extremely prolific, producing hundreds and hundreds of covers. Consequently, decorated cases of this period display an astonishing diversity of design styles and reflect a wide range of influences, including the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, Japanese prints and the so-called poster style of design." (source)

In stepped the Decorative Designers (or DD as the company was called), in 1895. It was founded by the husband and wife team of Henry and Lee Thayer, a talented and incredibly driven team of artist-designers with a real head for business. "The founder of the firm was Henry Thayer (1867–1940) who was trained as an architect (following the example of Stanford White, architect-book cover designer). Thayer was responsible for much of the lettering produced by the firm." Henry was the business guy, and did a lot of the lettering, but Emma Redington Lee (1874–1973) as she was actually named, was the real star in my opinion.

She started out as a mural artist, but upon co-founding DD with Henry, became a serious figure in publishing and design. Lee Thayer (as she was known) specialized in decoration, and designed most of the bindings including the beautiful decorative borders and designs, and also published over sixty mystery novels as well as many Children's books. She was responsible for designing a staggering amount of titles in a relatively short space of time. Anything up to 20,000 by some estimates. "During the heyday of decorated publishers' bindings no other American designer produced as many book covers as The Decorative Designers." (source)

The Decorative Designers monogram appeared on over 25,000 book covers, dust jackets, and text decorations. Still thirsty for more examples? I posted over one hundred here.

Henry Thayer and Emma Redington Lee Thayer were married in 1909 but later divorced in 1932, on the grounds of desertion. Who deserted whom, I don't know. I can guess, but I'd like to think Lee jumped into a 1920 Revere Tourer and sped off with her tennis instructor Rupert, silk scarf flying.

"Other graphic designers as talented and prolific as the Thayers worked for the company at various times, the most important being Jay Chambers, who was with The Decorative Designers from 1902 through 1916. The firm produced thousands of book covers at a rapid rate. The number of artists in the organization partly accounted for this. Another factor in the success of the “DD's” was its efficient and innovative method of operation. Labor was divided according to individual talents: Henry Thayer did lettering and handled business affairs, Lee Thayer specialized in conventionalized decorations, Jay Chambers excelled at figure design, and so on." (source)

Their designs were often initially sketched by hand, then transferred to brass plates and engraved by Rome K. Richardson and Adam Empie, both of whom occasionally designed covers individually using the monograms RR and a conjoined AE, respectively. Charles Buckles Falls (d.1960) and Jay Chambers (d. 1929) were in charge of drawing the figures featured in narrative designs. (source)

"After 1900, cover designs gradually became simpler. By 1910, the widespread use of decorated cloth on books was largely at an end. The illustrated paper book jacket, which had been in limited use for years, caught the public's fancy and proved to be an even cheaper advertising tool than decorated cloth cases. The golden age of publishers' bookbindings was over." (source)

It was a short but illustrious run. 

One of my faves, with no less than Maxfield Parrish illustrating

The distinctive double D logo that appeared on their designs

Decorative Urns in Drawings and Paintings

Simple curves emphasize the play of light on this English vase. Jeffrey Wyatville, Derbyshire (1820)

"Monsieur, je deteste les urnes! Elles devraient être brisées en morceaux pour pavez nos rues!"

Doctor Samuel Johnson.

Not exactly sure why I wrote that in French, as Johnson was a blue-blood Brit. Probably because I knew it would piss him off. Anyway, Johnson may want them smashed to pave our streets, but I happen to like urns. Especially old drawings and paintings of them.

They come in pretty handy for designing murals, too. Throw in an ornamental urn or two and you've instantly grounded your landscape and added an extra dimension of historic authenticity. That's why I tossed one into the mural above. I feel that their symmetrical curves and tight decoration offset a loosely painted landscape nicely. Reference images can be hard to come by, so I'm posting some here for you.

Mural I did for Kips Bay Show House, New York City

The urn I used in the mural, by Claude Ballin for Versailles (1665)

A little moss will help your urn 'sit' in your landscape. Charles Nizet, Chateau de Raray

Up to the challenge? Try painting this Charles le Brun vase. Versailles, (1678)

I love the shape of this tree. Urn by Claude Ballin for Versailles (1665)

All Illustrations above are from a fantastic book that I highly recommend, called Garden Vases, with incredible paintings by the talented architectural painter, Andrew Zega.

Architectural drawings of urns are scattered throughout literature. Architects on their Grand Tours of Italy and France would painstakingly measure and draw every urn they came across, along with everything else. I've collected a few together for you here. Whether you use them as reference material is up to you, I enjoy them simply as an example of draughtsmanship and the thirst for knowledge displayed by their authors.

from; William Pain, House Carpenter (1792)

from; Ornamental Drawings, Batty

Urns and Ornaments, by Benjamin Asher

Urn engraving, by Stefano Della Bella

'The Breakers' Mansion, Rhode Island

By George Smith, Cabinetmaker

I posted a huge set of Blouet's drawings here.

And the last word goes to the great Paolo Uccello

Bruchsal palace, a Baroque Masterpiece

The staggering cupola of Schloss Bruchsal, a masterpiece of baroque decoration

"I have now selected the place for my residence. I have never seen a more beautiful location in all my life." So said Damian Hugo von Schönborn in 1720. He wasted no time drawing up plans for no less than fifty separate buildings to occupy the grounds that comprise the palace. He said the reason he wanted so many buildings was so that, in the event of war, he could run into another building if one got damaged.

Detail of the grotto ceiling (photo)

There were, of course, the usual construction hiccups that happen on any project. Only these were a whole lot bigger. Balthasar Neumann stepped in when the going was rough, and created the gorgeous twin staircase that is one of the reasons his face ended up on the 50 Deutsche mark banknote. "The staircase in Bruchsal was the queen of all staircases in the baroque style, unparalleled in it's brilliant design and the high poetry of the room." (Georg Dehio)

Another of Marcini's ceilings, this one for Weissenstein Palace

Two painters, Johannes Zick and Giovanni Francesco Marcini were responsible for much of the work. Zick spent nine years working in Bruchsal, Marcini spent five, completing the dizzying illusionistic painting.

The Main Hall at Schloss Bruchsal

Detail of the rotunda ceiling in the Main Hall (photo)

Ceiling detail from the Marble Room (photo)

Hugo's vision seems prescient in hindsight: Bruchsal, like many towns in Germany, was absolutely devastated during the Second World War. The palace was barely standing, and debate raged as to whether it was even worth trying to restore it.

The palace was devastated in an air raid lasting only forty minutes on March 1st, 1945

I guess they fixed it (photo)

The Origin of Painted Ornament

Ornament drawing by Guillaume Abel Blouet

Was Greek sculpture painted? If so, what did it look like? It's a question that has had scholars debating for a very long time. Guillaume Abel Blouet was first to start the fire-storm (in the 1820s) by suggesting that Greek statuary had once been brightly colored. In his L’Expédition Scientifique de Morée he published reconstructions of major Greek and Byzantine monuments, demonstrating his theory by painting them in colorful hues.

"This touched off a controversy as to whether classical works were poly-chromed, an assumption counter to Winckelmann and other earlier classical historians." source

Blouet published several volumes of gorgeous drawings from his trips to Rome, including these few examples of painted ornament from 1823. I posted over 140 of his drawings from the Roman volume here, on my Flickr page. They are fantastic reference material for murals too, by the way.

From "Ensemble de Dessins de Rome et Ses Environs" by Blouet, 1823

Winckelmann was considered the father of art history, and anything he said on the subject was considered gospel. Here comes Blouet and over-turns our whole notion of what we consider 'Classical'. [The controversy must have been short-lived, however, as Blouet was appointed architect for the completion of the Arc de Triomphe, in Paris in 1836].

What's interesting to me is that his theories, though grudgingly accepted, were quickly swept under the rug. Nobody ran out with brushes to slap a coat of paint on all the monuments of Paris. We have been conditioned to prefer the bleached and faded statues as they stand in our Museums. "Centuries of burial or neglect had bleached the marbles, and greened the bronzes, beyond their makers' recognition. But it was those altered colors that became the model for how the ancient world had looked, and for what all new sculpture ought to look like." source

Or, as Gurewitsch writes: "Though we seldom think about it, such fragments are overwhelmingly abstract, thus, quintessentially "modern." And for most of us, that's not a problem. We're modern too. We like our antiquities that way."

Athena, colored according to research by Brinkmann

We now know that Blouet was correct: the Greeks did in fact paint their statuary with high chroma colors of great variety. 

The Smithsonian describes the above pictured re-construction of the statue of Athena, showing the color palette of the ancient Greeks as determined by archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann. Brinkmann has been painstakingly researching for the last 25 years

"The partial color reconstruction of Athena is based on a c.490 B.C. sculpture of the Goddess from the pediment of the Temple of Aphaia on the Greek island of Aegina. Vinzenz Brinkmann typically leaves areas white where no evidence of original coloration is found. This rear view of the statue emphasizes the elaborate detailing of Athena’s aegis, or cape, trimmed with the life-like bodies of partially uncoiled green snakes."

Brinkmann himself has struggled somewhat with the gaudy palette. "If people say, ‘What kitsch,’ it annoys me but I’m not surprised,” he says. 

What pigments did they use exactly? Hard to say. "Even after extensive visual and scientific analysis of the original sculptures, scholars still don't know if the paint was applied in one or two coats, how finely the pigments were ground, or exactly which binding medium would have been used in each case--all elements that would affect the appearance of a finished piece. Generally, though, the color reconstructions in the exhibition "truly look closer to ancient sculpture than just the plain white marble"." archaeology.org

The Alexander Sarcophagus as it originally appeared

How to Draw the Acanthus: Drawing Shadows (Part IV)

Figure 1; Outline

George Smith, "Furniture Draughtsman to His Majesty", produced an incredible volume of Plates in 1826 "comprising instructions in the elementary principles of Ornamental Foliage enabling the student to draw with facility and correctness in this so generally useful branch of the Art."

Of course I had a camera hidden in a loaf of bread when I went to study these fabulous engravings. I guess I could have bought a copy online for $2,750, but I'm still holding out for a time-machine so I can buckle up my pantaloons and race down to Jones & Co. in London with a shiny new Guinea in my purse to purchase a copy of Mr. Smith's new and "elegantly colored" hand-engravings, fresh off the press.

I'm including here his engravings of the Acanthus as Part V in an ongoing series describing how to draw the Acanthus and other ornament. In this instance we'll take a brief look at how to lay in the shadows.

Fig. 1 shows the delineation of the outline of the Acanthus ornament. The design is taken from an example of the Corinthian Capital as existing in the arch of Titus, in Rome. Of note is the calligraphic quality of the line. Though it was copied from a stone carving, Smith has rendered his ornament with fluid, organic lines. I also love how carefully he delineated the flutings (a,b and c)and the principal fibres of the stem.

Figure 2; 1st Tint

Having prepared three tints necessary for painting the shadows, according to value, Figure 2 shows us how the first (or lightest value) of these shadow tints is laid in. Using a full brush, Smith washes the broad shade of the leaf from the turnover. Note how the same shade is used to also wash in the broad shadow cast outside the leaf.

Figure 3; 2nd Tint

Proceeding to his second shadow tint in Figure 3, Smith continues to lay on his shadows. We can see that he omits tinting the projecting parts such as the stems and fibres of the leaves under it's shadow, as marked in Figure 3 above as 1,2,3 and 4.

Figure 4; 3rd Tint

Smith reserves his darkest shadow value for the tight whorls of the leaf, and narrow areas where the fibrous stems are closest together. Use dark shadows sparingly, or your grisaille ornament painting will appear stiff and angular. Remember that we're painting foliage not stone, in this case.

Also notice that there is reflected light cast from the background onto the left side of the leaf. Smith omits painting his darkest shadow tint on these areas to render the effect of reflected light.

Figure 5; Constructing the Acanthus

Used in combination with this post showing painted examples of grisaille ornament from that era, you should be able to see clearly the steps involved in the painting of this type of ornament. Below is a beautiful example (from that post) of the technique described above, with the added inclusion of a painted highlight. You can clearly see the steps involved as described by Smith to create cast shadows and reflected light with no more than three or four shadow tints and a fifth highlight.

Jean-Francois Hache, Marquetry

Time for a little eye candy. After all my inane babbling in the last few posts I think it's time we heard from a Master, and Jean-Francois Hache was one of the greatest craftsmen who ever lived. These images are from a collection of small boxes that he created. I posted a more complete set here. Hache's work was highlighted in the three volume set by Pierre Ramond, Masters of Marquetry.

It's kind of crazy to think that this could ever be considered a 'craft' and not an 'art', but that's evidently the way they thought in those days. You followed in the footsteps of your father, and joined the trade like anyone else.

"The dynasty began with Noël Hache (1630-1675), the son of a master baker who chose not to enter the family business, but rather studied veneering in the workshop of a Calais master. Eventually, Noël set up his own workshop in Toulouse and, upon his death, it was taken over by his son Thomas. Thomas Hache then moved the atêlier to Grenoble. His only son, Pierre, worked with him as did his grandson, Jean-François.

Jean-François Hache (1730-1796) is probably the most famous of the Hache craftsmen. In 1756 he spent some time in Paris where he was very much influenced by the Louis XV style and particularly by the work of Jean-François Oeben. He gradually took the baton at the family workshop and around 1760 began to incorporate more simplified forms and intricate marquetry into his designs.

A strong keynote of Hache’s work is his use of bold and unusual geometric inlaid forms. The distinctive nature of these forms is accentuated by the fact that he placed them within late Louis XV rococo furniture prototypes. The interesting and highly successful tension this created makes Hache’s work unique."

I love the subtle tones, simple geometry & patina of this Hache floor

Our digital line drawing

Asked to produce a Parquet tile based upon one of Hache's designs, we re-drew the geometry (of the floor above) in the computer, then textured it using our collection of digital veneer files. Now it was ready for printing onto our custom 3/4" HDF floor tiles. Here's our rough file layed out like the Hache floor:

Here's a schematic of our 'work in progress' digital Hache floor, on modular 16" HDF tiles (needs aging)

Our (not quite finished) Hache central star quadrant, with digital 'aged patina' added for effect

Heartbeat of the City

Excerpt from Baraka, by Ron Fricke. Music by Tortoise.

Living in New York City is a special kind of madness. Every time I walk to the Subway or along the street I can feel myself picking up the pace until I'm rushing along at the same breakneck speed as others, whether I've got somewhere to go or not. People speak of the addictive physical charge of this city, but it turns out that all cities have their own distinct and measurable speed.

London's Millennium Bridge over the Thames famously started swaying the day after it was opened to the public. As thousands of people poured across, the natural rhythm of their footsteps caused a positive feedback phenomenon where the bridge and all the pedestrians began a lock-step kind of dance.

"Known as Synchronous Lateral Excitation, the natural sway motion of people walking caused small sideways oscillations in the bridge, which in turn caused people on the bridge to sway in step, increasing the amplitude of the bridge oscillations and continually reinforcing the effect.The lateral vibration problems of the Millennium Bridge are very unusual, but not entirely unique." Wiki

Oscillating bridges are not news, but in this case it was an unforeseen response to the pedestrians themselves. The greater the number of people, the greater the amplitude of the vibrations.

Experimenters tested whether it's actually true that people live faster in big cities. Turns out it is true: Measured over the distance of 60 feet and averaged, it is possible to tell the size of a city merely by the speed that it's pedestrians walk. In other words, if you tell me how fast you walk, I can tell you not only the population of your city but the average income and lots of other facts about you. We are linked to our cities in fundamental ways, echoing their size with our pace of life.

"Observation of over 1,300 pedestrians at 10 places in Australia and England revealed that walking speed is a function of city size in that pedestrians move more quickly in big cities than in small towns." [source]

Ray Stantz:	We've been experimenting with the ectoplasm we found in the subway tunnel.
Peter Venkman:	Should I get spoons?

In Ghostbusters II, a toxic slime emanates from the sewers and threatens the city, but the Ghostbusters "discover that the slime reacts both to positive and negative emotions and even 'dances' to music, but suspect that it has been generated by the bad attitudes of New Yorkers." Hollywood stole my thesis.

Stephen Jay Gould informs us that "during an average lifetime, all mammals have nearly the same number of breaths and heartbeats"

"Small animals tick through life far more rapidly than large animals - their hearts work more quickly, they breathe more frequently, their pulse beats much faster. To keep themselves going, large mammals do not need to generate as much heat per unit of body weight as small animals. Tiny shrews move frenetically, eating nearly all their waking lives to keep their metabolic fire burning at the maximal rate among mammals; blue whales glide majestically, their hearts beating the slowest rhythm among active, warm-blooded creatures."

Small and large mammals are essentially similar. Their lifetimes are scaled to their life's pace, and all endure for approximately the same amount of biological time. Small mammals tick fast, burn rapidly and live for a short time; large mammals live long at a stately pace. Measured by their own internal clocks, mammals of different sizes tend to live for the same amount of time.

Elephants are known to sway to the rhythm of their own heartbeat. Believed to be a reaction to unnatural stress caused by life in captivity, their rhythmic swaying was found to be at the rate of about 28 beats per minute, the same rate as their heart. Like elephants in captivity, we live ever faster within the confines of our cities as they expand, our pace of life increasing exponentially. As Tyrell said to Roy Batty in Bladerunner, "the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long."