Greek Ornament in The Coloured Ornament of All Historical Styles
Today we are featuring Greek decorative plates from The Coloured Ornament of All Historical Styles, Part I: Antiquity by Alexander Speltz, published in Leipzig, Germany in 1915 by Baumgärtner. The multi volume portfolio was produced with three color and four color printing based on Speltz’s original watercolor paintings.
In a preface to the Part I, Spetz wrote:
“In accomplishing this work special attention has been paid to the possibility of easily finding the text belonging to each figure, and to a classification according to the chronology of art history and archeology, for this work is not merely intended to be a standard for the polychromatic ornament, but also a resource for the study of history of art and archaeology.
If this work, whose first part herewith published and whose further parts Medieval Period, Renaissance, and Rococo Style, Classicism will follow as soon as possible, contributes to revive that sense of colours lost in this our prosaic time and helps to restore to our generation that delightful rejoicing in beautiful forms and colours, the writer’s end has been achieved.”
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–Sarah, Special Collections Graduate Assistant
