Carol Belanger Grafton - 400 Traditional Tile Designs in Full Color

Copyright Copyright 1992 by Dover Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Bibliographical Note400 Traditional Tile Designs in Full Color is a new work, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 1992. See the Publisher's Note for the sources of the plates. This book belongs to the Dover Pictorial Archive Series. (For permission for additional use, please write to Permissions Department. (For permission for additional use, please write to Permissions Department.

Dover Publications, Inc.. 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola. N.Y. 11501.) However, republication or reproduction of any illustration by any other graphic service, whether it be in a book or in any other design resource, is strictly prohibited. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grafton, Carol Belanger. p. cm. (Dover pictorial archive series) ISBN 0-486-26952-3 1. (Dover pictorial archive series) ISBN 0-486-26952-3 1.

TilesThemes, motives. I. Title. II. Series. 11501 400 Traditional Tile Designs in Full Color Selected and Arranged by C AROL B ELANGER G RAFTON DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC. 11501 400 Traditional Tile Designs in Full Color Selected and Arranged by C AROL B ELANGER G RAFTON DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Mineola, New York PUBLISHERS NOTE The grand style of public, palatial and ecclesiastical architecture has long entailed the use of decorative floor and wall tiling, which still today strikingly enhances the effects of splendor and permanence integral to the architectural conception. Decorative tiles were first used in the Middle East some 4000 years ago, and gradually spread throughout the region and to the southern Mediterranean. They seem to have appeared in Europe only early in the current millennium (centuries after the arrival of mosaic), when they reached Spain via the Moors. The principles of Islamic design have tended to prevail ever since. The motifs are generally abstract (reflecting a religious tradition prohibiting artistic representation of living things), though floriated and foliated designs are also numerous; and a mass of detail usually fills in all the available area, without creating a strongly hierarchical structurea highly practical principle that permits considerable adaptation in the designs overall proportions. of Broseley Shropshire, and Campbell Tile Co. of Stoke-upon-Trent; two Spanish firms, Gabarr, Tarrida y Comp of Igualada and E. of Stoke-upon-Trent; two Spanish firms, Gabarr, Tarrida y Comp of Igualada and E.

E Escofet y C of Barcelona; and two French firms, E. Thomazeau of Crizay (Dux-Sevres) and Marquet Frres of Andrzieux (Loire); plus a collection by the French artist A. Cheneveau and published by the Maison F. Delarue &. Fils, Paris. Many of the designs are credited, several to artists and architects of some reputation in their time.

They appear, of course, greatly reduced, reflecting ratios of 1:6,1:8,1:10, 1:15 and 1:16. In the original catalogs the tiles are recommended for use in a variety of buildings (schools, churches, conservatories, public buildings) and areas (courtyards, halls, vestry rooms, lobbies, vestibules) and for numerous specific surfaces and purposes (fireplaces, pilasters, furniture, flowerboxes, stringcourses, dadoes, friezes, moldings, altar rails and steps, ecclesiastical pavements, inscriptions, baths, skirtings, fenders). The hearth designs can be recognized by their shape (see pp. 52, 53, 58 and 66). The many strip patterns are obviously appropriate for moldings, stringcourses and the like. And the basic bordered carpet format could, for most designs, readily be adapted to broader rectangular floor and wall surfaces of many differing proportions.

In these 416 examples the designer and architect of the present day will rediscover the dazzling richness of a great tradition.