Animal Motifs from Around the World

140 Designs for Artists & Craftspeople

Doris Rosenthal

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780486497631
• eBook ISBN: 9780486315966
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Art

Selected from the ancient art and artifacts of an international array of museum collections, this spectacular volume offers a unique collection of unusual animal motifs from Prussia, Egypt, Persia, China, Germany, Sweden, and other regions. Chosen for their unconventionality, frankness, and decorative qualities, these images are simple rather than sophisticated. Their timeless appeal makes them especially attractive to contemporary designers, tattoo artists, crafters, and other seekers of creative inspiration.
The tremendous diversity of styles ranges from majestic Byzantine lions to playful Costa Rican crocodiles. Featured illustrations include a fifteenth-century Gothic shield depicting a stag, an image of a bull from Assyrian ceramics, horses from the earthenware of ancient Greece and Egypt, creatures from the Bayeux Tapestry, and other rare animal motifs.

NOTE

This collection of design motifs has been made to put before the student and designer the simplest and most primitive forms from which he can recreate. It does not in any sense pretend to be a historic résumé. The motifs were chosen from the designs of all countries and all times and all mainly for their unconventionality and frankness, and their splendidly decorative power, not for their cleverness nor sophistication. The present post-impressionist movement in art stresses clearness and cleanness of statement, rather than befogment of statement by technique. The simple vision of the child coupled with a beautiful insight is the backbone of the modern movement. The material in this book was chosen for just that reason—to bring to the student and designer the naïve and vigorous work of peasant and savage who has decorated his home before the factory entered to ruin his taste and destroy his native ability.

It will be evident how the material with which the designer has had to work has influenced his design. But irrespective of clay, of stone and chisel, of paint and brush, or warp and woof—the designs were chosen for their stimulating freshness and their concise beauty. Attention also is called to the simplicity of outline and the delightful and infinite variety of the cutting space within.

It is suggested that this material be used solely for inspiration—to understand how some other artist has created, and then to recreate. In no sense of the word is it a model from which to make tiresome copies. The designer or art supervisor or teacher must have illustrative material with which to fire the imagination. To my knowledge there is no brief résumé in print of primitive design motifs of all periods and ages. It is necessary to spend endless days searching through Egyptian, Greek, Indian, and Gothic materials and books to gather data. This collection aims to give clearly and concisely this information.

Thanks for the help extended in compiling this material is acknowledged to the Textile and Li...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Note
• Back Cover