Fin de siècle : the illustrators of the 'nineties /

In the history of Western art, one finds a few decades flooded with aggressively talented activities. There were, for example, the Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s; and the 1890s were crammed with works of such illustrators as Beardsley, Gibson, Crane, Nicholson, Burne-Jones, Beerbohm, et al. The pages of this engaging critical history are equally crammed with reproductions: 12 in full color and about 120 black-and-white reproductions painted with pale yellow backgrounds that suggest the age of their generation. The ten chapters ("A Glance Backwards," "American Style," "Beardsley and His Followers," "Children's Books," etc.) highlight areas of productivity, mainly magazine and book illustrations. For example, the evolution of the poster and broadside became a strong influence on the emerging colored picture books of the period. Houfe, while insightful and offering many personal interpretations, seems also obliged to deliver names of artists and publications, dates, and related events in abundance. Yet, despite the proper scholarship, there is a story-telling quality to the prose that combines with the reproductions to make us attend to the significance of this artistically fecund era. K. Marantz; Ohio State University

This charming, handsomely produced, in-depth survey of British book illustrations from the late 1880s to 1900 unravels a maze of influences and contradictory currents. Leading designers imitating Aubrey Beardsley worked in an art nouveau style yet disclaimed any connection with that idiom. William Morris, high priest of the hand-made book, was ``blind to readability and balance in his own productions.'' With the Arts and Crafts movement, books were treated almost as buildings, their paper, decoration and binding as architectural components. Covering such illustrators as Charles Ricketts, Laurence Housman and Walter Crane, with chapters on children's books and on the impact of American designers on British illustration, art critic Houfe surveys a feverishly creative period that ran the gamut from the dashing impetuosity of E. Gordon Craig's broadsheet style to the puckish humor of F. H. Townsend's ``Georgian School'' drawings. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved