1,100 Designs and Motifs from Historic Sources

by John Leighton

Well-known in the Victorian art world for his award-winning ornamental designs, John Leighton decided to provide contemporary artists and artisans with a rich sourcebook of ideas and inspiration to use in developing their own designs. Entitled Suggestions in Design, the book featured an enormous array of designs and motifs from many cultures and times. The present volume contains all 102 plates from that rare 19th-century compilation.
Included are more than 1,100 motifs painstakingly adapted from a host of design traditions: primitive tribal art and pottery; Egyptian sculpture and painting; Assyrian wall sculptures and carved ivory; Greek sculpture and terra-cotta vases; Etruscan painting, bronzework, and jewelry; Pompeian architectural details and mosaics; designs from Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Persian, Moorish, French Renaissance, and other sources. Careful reworkings rather than exact copies of original designs, these motifs were meant to guide users in creating their own versions of decorative ornament.
Reproduced from a valuable original printed in 1881, this book includes detailed descriptions of the plates. It represents a highly useful source of beautifully rendered, copyright-free images that will be welcomed by artists, illustrators, craftworkers, and countless enthusiasts of the decorative arts.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

John Leighton (pseud. Luke Limner) was an English artist notable for his book illustrations and book cover designs. His talent for design found early expression in the publication "Suggestions in Design ... for the Use of Artists and Art Workmen" (1852). This was a work that expounded Leighton's values and beliefs with regard to the history of design. He used the ornaments and designs repeatedly in the thirty years after its publication with regard to illustrations within books, and for many hundreds of drawings for book cover designs.

Leighton was one of the first to study book plates, and encourage their collection, and in the early 1890s helped in the establishment of an Ex-Libris Society, of which he was the Vice-President. As a publisher, he produced a journal for the society called the Book-Plate Annual.

Several works by the artist have been sold at auction, including 'Edwardian Woman Sitting in an Armchair Admiring a Floral Display' sold at John Moran Auctioneers, Inc. 'Antiques & Decorative Arts Auction' in 2011. There have been Several articles about John Leighton, including 'Art Fund brings Sir Denis Mahon's 57 Italian Baroque masterpieces into the collections of six UK museums' written for ArtDaily in 2013.

Reviews

[Yvonne Angioletti · Rating 1 out of 5]

Digital version does not let you enlarge images

I bought this because I wanted to use the designs - when you enlarge the images in the digital version they become completely blurry, way too blurry to use. I am so disappointed. $10 for nothing.