Decorative Sketches: Architecture and Design Influenced by Nature in Early 20th-Century Paris

By René Binet

At the turn of the 20th century, artists and craftsmen throughout Europe and America were profoundly affected by a new art style that took its inspiration from nature. Generally referred to as Art Nouveau, the trend influenced all manner of creative types, from painters, illustrators, and architects to ironworkers, interior decorators, and designers of furniture and jewelry. Although broad and varied, the style is almost uniformly characterized by abstract, asymmetrical, curvilinear design. This "new art" both elevated the status of crafts to fine arts and brought objects into a harmonious relationship with their environment through the use of lines that were natural, vital, and, most importantly, organic.
The decorative images in this volume, reproduced from a rare 1902 portfolio, reflect the era's exotic and imaginative approach to architecture and applied design. Sixty plates, 12 in full color and many with partial and varied color, exhibit the influence of the artwork of naturalist Ernst Haeckel on artist René Binet's designs, especially as related to Binet's "Monumental Door," prepared for the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. Illustrations reflecting the styles of Art Nouveau include a wealth of examples that range from doorbells and keys to stairways, fountains, jewelry, ceramics, and other items. Graphic designers, illustrators, architects, artists, and crafters will find this volume a rich source of ornamental ideas, authentic motifs, and design inspiration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Oct 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9780486826196

Book preview

DECORATIVE SKETCHES

Architecture and Design Influenced by Nature in Early 20th-Century Paris

René Binet

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Mineola, New York

To

GUSTAVE GEFFROY

His grateful friend,

R. Binet

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2017, is an unabridged republication of sixty plates from Esquisses Décoratives, originally published by Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, ca. 1902. The original preface by Gustave Geffroy has been newly translated from the French by Diane Goullard, www.FrenchAndEnglish.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Binet, René, 1866–1911, creator. | Geffroy, Gustave, 1855–1926, writer of preface.

Title: Decorative sketches : architecture and design influenced by nature in early 20th-century Paris / Rene Binet.

Description: Mineola, New York : Dover Publications, 2017. | This Dover edition, first published in 2017, is an unabridged republication of sixty plates from Esquisses Décoratives, originally published by Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, ca. 1902. The original preface by Gustave Geffroy has been newly translated from the French by Diane Goullard.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017022952| ISBN 9780486816685 (paperback) | ISBN 0486816680

Subjects: LCSH: Binet, René, 1866–1911—Themes, motives. | Decoration and ornament—France—Paris—Art nouveau. | BISAC: ARCHITECTURE / Decoration & Ornament. | ART / European.

Classification: LCC NK1449.Z9 B562 2017 | DDC 745.092—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017022952

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

81668001    2017

www.doverpublications.com

CONTENTS

Preface

List of Illustrations

Decorative Sketches: Architecture and Design Influenced by Nature in Early 20th-Century Paris

PREFACE

But if they can’t understand that parts that are so small that they are unnoticeable can be as divided as the firmament, then there is no better way than to have them look through binoculars that enlarge that delicate speck to an enormous mass. There, they will easily understand that through the medium of another piece of glass, more artistically tailored, one can enlarge it to the point of emulating that very firmament, the vastness of which they admire. These objects now seem to them very easily partitionable, they may remember that nature is infinitely greater than art.

PASCAL: THOUGHTS (Reflections Upon Geometry In General)

. . . There is such an insect that by day or by night, viewed through the naked eye or under a microscope, would present no interest. But if, with the aid of a scalpel, you took