Art Nouveau Floral Patterns and Stencil Designs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive) [Paperback]

M. P. Verneuil (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dover Pictorial Archive | Publication Date: January 19, 1998

Magnificent collection of floral patterns and stencil designs, created by one of the movement's finest artists, includes 120 images of graceful garden flowers —foxglove, hollyhocks, columbine, lilies, among others, and 39 stencil designs of blossoming trees, reeds, mushrooms, oak leaves, peacocks, and more.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (January 19, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 048640126X
• ISBN-13: 978-0486401263
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.2 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #270,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful artwork, beautiful reproductions, June 7, 2006

By 

J. Schmidt - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Art Nouveau Floral Patterns and Stencil Designs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive) (Paperback)

I thought the artwork in this book was stunning, and the reproduction quality and colors were lovely. I did have one major problem with the book, two of the main designs on the cover (topmost horizontal design and the center horizontal design) are NOT IN THE BOOK! These are two of the main patterns I planned to use from the book, and now if I want to, I need to get them from the cover, where they are covered by text. I found this to be unacceptable! Please keep this fact in mind if the cover is what won you over.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sit down before you open this one, January 14, 2006

By 

DGehman "Dave" (Framingham, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Art Nouveau Floral Patterns and Stencil Designs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive) (Paperback)

Dover Publications is the friend of anyone with nearly any sort of interest (and not much money). If you're interested in the ways and means of New Art, get this one.

M. Verneuil clearly would have liked the Dover editors. LIke them, he had his wide-ranging interests, in his case in botany, Japanese design, and decorative arts (to judge by his booklist).

This book is a feast that shifts back and forth from stylization and abstraction on one hand to close observation of natural plant forms on the other. One two-page spread (plates 62 & 63) in particular juxtaposes both this reduction into pattern and the accuracy of his eye.

These are the crown imperial and the German iris from Verneuil's Etude de la plante. Side views of each plant give you the random visual complexity of the original -- almost scruffy leaves, in the crown imperial's case. Both set forth the visually overwhelming detail of the blossoms. But, at the bottom of both plates are plan views of a blossom, simple, regular and compelling as a Japanese mon.

If the rest of Verneuil's plant book is this good, I'm hoping Dover reprints the whole thing one day.

When Verneuil moves to greater depths (or is it heights?) of abstraction, the results are often stunning. Don't miss plate 27, an overall pattern of maidenhair fern in shades of orange, or plate 28, a tiled pattern of wild iris in rippling water.

It's interesting to compare the sunflowers in plate 79, apparently a detail from a running line of tiles, with the one in plate 59 from Etude de la plante. The latter captures the petals in wild abandon, the leaves in their rough, almost papery reality. The former flattens and regularizes each leaf, and views the flowers head-on, giving us a literal sunburst of shape and color in complex but regular pattern.

Throughout, M. Verneuil brings a solid color sense, now playing with shades of neighboring hues, now with contrasting hues. Each one seems absolutely right.

You can't open this book to any page without feeling that the mind and eye that originated it were pretty special. It's more than likely that some of this impression is due to the care of Carol Belanger Grafton, who selected and arranged the plates -- many of the two-page spreads seem to delight in comparing, or mirroring, or contrasting Verneuil's designs.

If you like art nouveau, you'll want this book.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST OVERALL Art Nouveau Floral Borders & Ornaments Collection Book for Artists, February 15, 2008

By 

Shea Ryan "AppleGirl" (Central Illinois) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Art Nouveau Floral Patterns and Stencil Designs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive) (Paperback)

I have about two dozen books specifically purporting to be Art Nouveau 'collections', and NOT ONE, or even THREE COMBINED, come close to capturing what THIS book offers, albeit in the "floral" patterns category... To artists looking for a definitive 'starter' source, in the art of the period, for repurposing in art, crafts and decor (ie: wallpaper, fabric, pottery, woodcarving, etc.), pick up a copy of this book and forget the rest! I was able to find not only what I needed for several initial projects, but was inspired to START more new projects based on the sparkling ideas inspired by this plethora of lush color images. Only wished a CD-ROM was available to accompany this book with hi-res digital images, as it would have made importing images to my computer (for re-sizing, tiling, color changes, etc.) much easier than hand-scanning... Only my collection of (specifically) Alphonse Mucha art books surpasses the value of "Art Nouveau Floral Patterns & Stencil Designs", and that is only because I have not YET found a like compilation of M. P. Verneuil 'figure' designs.