The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones

The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones

This beautiful, highly influential book, long a classic in its field, remains today one of the most comprehensive and best-organized presentations of historic ornamental design. The original 100 color plates, meticulously reproduced here from the rare original folio edition, present a dazzling spectrum of copyright-free design motifs from both ancient and modern cultures. The Grammar of Ornament features designs from around the world: the West to the Far East and many cultures in between.

Graphic and fine artists will find nearly three thousand designs rendered in fine detail from a variety of sources:

• Greek and Roman borders and mosaics
• Celtic designs taken from manuscripts
• Motifs from medieval paintings and stained glass
• Floral patterns from Chinese porcelain, wood, and fabrics
• Illuminated script from the Koran
• Ornamentation from Turkish mosques and tombs
• Moorish designs from the Alhambra

Connoisseurs of art and design will find the book's rich display of decorative motifs an endless source of contemplative pleasures.

The work of the celebrated English designer and architect Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament, initially published in 1856, was the first book to present a global and historical range of ornament in color, the first to display primitive art for its design content, and among the first to suggest nature as a basic design source.

Widely used and circulated, this prophetic work ushered in a major change in Western aesthetics and heralded the move towards nonrepresentational art. Its value as a beautifully organized and produced pictorial museum of historic ornamental design remains unsurpassed.

Owen Jones was an architect and designer who taught at the South Kensington School of Design, London, during the 1850s and served as joint architect of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The following year he was appointed Director of Decorations for the new Crystal Palace exhibition in Sydenham, south London. The Grammar of Ornament, his legacy to designers, quickly acquired the status of a classic. He died in 1874. Iain Zaczek, who has contributed the commentaries, is an art historian who graduated from Wadham College, Oxford University, and the Courtauld Institute, London. He has written on a wide variety of topics, but his special interest is in nineteenth-century art. He is the author of The Essential William Morris, The Essential Art Deco, and The Art of Illuminated Manuscripts.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781445566238
ISBN 10	1445566230
Title	The Grammar of Ornament
Author	Owen Jones
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Read Books
Year published	2010-04-02
Number of pages	172
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable