Canns Down Press recently launched a delightful new collection of Art Nouveau inspired wrapping papers.
Featuring botanical designs by Eugène Grasset from his publication Plants and Their Application to Ornament (1897), the collection celebrates nature through flowing lines, decorative detail and harmonious colour. Created in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the original designs remain as fresh and inspiring today as they were over a century ago.
We enjoy learning about the history and inspiration for the designs of papers, so let's take a look:
A Franco-Swiss decorative artist, Eugène Grasset worked in the late nineteenth century. He was one of the most in-demand graphic artists of the time and also a teacher and theorist. In 1896, after years of presenting his influential theories at various art and design schools in Paris, he published his Plants and Their Application to Ornament.
The book focuses on a visual analysis of twenty-four common plant forms. For each plant Grasset presents a simple naturalistic study, followed by plates depicting progressively more abstracted adaptations of the plant's form in decorative design, this is then followed by showing them in the context of their potential use, from textiles to stained glass or furniture, vases or lace. The book demonstrated how careful observation of natural forms can inspire decorative art.
The richly illustrated book is a wonderful pictorial summary of his key idea concerning the use of natural forms as the basis for developing decorative motifs. The drawings and lithographs were designed by his students, including several by Maurice Pillard Verneuil (1869-1942), who himself went on to publish his own influential ornamental pattern books. Each original image was produced in colour lithography which required several runs through the printing press to build the final multicolor print.
Grasset's work proved to be a significant influence on the emerging Art Nouveau movement at the time.
Below are three of the plates from the publication depicting the progression of the waterlily pattern, from initial sketch, abstracted version to possibilities for application of the design.
Images from the public domain review.
The wrapping paper designs in this new collection include designs inspired by irises, waterlilies, periwinkles, lilac and the flowers of a chestnut tree.