All Colour Book Of Art Nouveau

All Colour Book of Art Nouveau (1974) by Geoffrey Warren – Octopus Books – ISBN 0706400682 – Condition: Good

There was a period when artists, architects and designers collectively decided that straight lines were rather dull, flowers ought to be everywhere, women should have impossibly flowing hair, and even a door handle might as well look as though it had just grown organically out of a lily pond.

That period was Art Nouveau.

Geoffrey Warren’s All Colour Book of Art Nouveau, published by Octopus Books in 1974, is a compact introduction to one of the most recognisable decorative movements ever to wind its way around a poster, staircase, vase, lamp, building façade or extremely elaborate piece of furniture.

Art Nouveau flourished around the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, bringing with it a love of sweeping curves, natural forms, floral patterns, elegant figures and the general principle that if something could be decorated, it almost certainly should be.

The movement appeared across Europe in slightly different forms, turning up in architecture, interiors, jewellery, furniture, glass, ceramics, illustration and graphic design. It was decorative art with absolutely no intention of pretending not to be decorative.

This book gathers together examples of the style in colour, making it a useful visual introduction for anyone who enjoys design that refuses to sit quietly in the background.

Expect curling stems, sinuous lines, stylised plants, decorative lettering, ornate interiors and the sort of visual excess that makes modern minimalism look as though somebody simply forgot to finish furnishing the room.

The appeal of Art Nouveau is that it occupies that wonderful territory between art and everyday life. A poster can become a work of art. A lamp can become a sculpture. A staircase can apparently develop tendrils.

It was a movement that seemed determined to make ordinary surroundings more beautiful, even if this occasionally involved making everything considerably harder to dust.

Geoffrey Warren’s book is particularly suited to readers who want a broad visual survey rather than a dense academic treatise. It gives a flavour of the movement, its forms and its decorative ambitions without demanding that you first complete a degree in European design history.

Published in the 1970s, the book also has a certain period charm of its own. There is something rather pleasing about a 1974 book celebrating the decorative splendour of the 1890s, particularly now that both periods have themselves become collectible.

This copy is in Good condition, making it a perfectly respectable example for reading, browsing or leaving strategically on a coffee table so visitors assume you have strong opinions about Hector Guimard and decorative ironwork.

Ideal for collectors of art books, lovers of Art Nouveau, students of design history, admirers of vintage illustration, or anyone who believes a perfectly ordinary object can always be improved by adding another curve.

Another attractive survivor from Crappy Old Books — proof that there was once a time when designers looked at a plain wall and thought, “No. This clearly needs more flowers.”

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