Customer Reviews

422 Art Nouveau Designs and Motifs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archives)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I purchased this book along with one by M. P. Verneuil, and, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give THIS one a firm "5". The idea starters are here, in some lovely period (although somewhat mono to duochromatic) colors, but most are small and will need much manipulation and skilled handwork to transfer to a project. Because of their small printed size, a scan into digital format can only help so far: I was able to scan a chosen 1.5" X 3" image in at 300dpi, re-interpolating the image at 200% size. THEN I was able to "re-draw" the image by tracing it using Adobe Illustrator, producing my own vector (infinitely scaleable) digital image. It took me (a professional graphic artist) about 3 hours total to produce ONE of the 7 borders I need for several urns I am working on.

When every minute counts, I cannot afford to do this every time I need an image to "accent" a project I've already spent hours on, so, for me, it would be far easier to dream up a design (or use one of the illo's in this book as a 'starter') on my own without going through all of the scanning, re-drawing, image manipulations, tweaking, re-sizing, etc.

For those who KNOW there's no such thing as a "free lunch" (or thick volume of totally usable art for tracing or stencilling), this is still a nice book for referencing, especially if you're having a creative block and need some sparks to get the artistic fire going. But do expect to work at turning out a scaleable, tileable piece.

My only other disappointment was that this was a relatively THIN book (let?), and might've been a little nicer (and heftier!) if they'd NOT tried to squeeze so many illo's onto each page (hence, making most almost too small to work with)...


On the other hand, the "other" book I purchased, "Art Nouveau Floral Patterns and Stencil Designs" by M. P. Verneuil, was WONDERFUL (read my review of it there): the illo sizes are comfortable, the colors are bewitching (true color, not mono or duo tints!), and I am eager to use 4 out of every 5 designs (159 total crisp, detailed color plates)in the book!

-- Shea

Being a lover of Art Nouveau style, I liked the designs which will be very useful in my artistic endeavours. However, I was quite disappointed with the presentation of colours and sometimes print quality

This book is fantastic. Beautiful images and tons of borders, full-color - breath taking!