European Folk Art Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive)

Worth buying for the artistic and cultural diversity.Pity the publisher doesn't activate the 'Look Inside' feature. A reading of the book's introduction would give sufficient tattle, a few pages would entice:-Sixty plates: 2-9 designs per plate, more than 250 designs.-Motifs: plant, animal, Christmas, holiday, geometric. religious figures, abstracts...-Range: whimsical to stylized.-Applications: needlework, textile design, leather work, pottery, wood burning, carving, drawing, Wycinanki...Art from 24 countries alphabetically arranged: including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Yugoslavia. One to five pages for each country. Ex: Albania shows 3 designs on 1 page. Czechoslovakia boasts 20 designs 5 pages.A key on each page explains the media source, most with time periods.Ex: Sampler embroidery, west Hungary, Slovak influence (early 19th century).This allows the curious to gleefully chase more information elsewhere.Most art from 17th - 19th centuries.On the 10 vertically-laid pages, text on the left page is along the spine, text on the right page along the edge. This makes the right-hand pages a tad harder to copy. For that, lack of a simple index page, and the desire for the book to lay a little flatter, I would dock it a half star. Don't twist your hair over it though; at 9.99 even I, Queen of Thrift, overlook this. Dare to crack the spine and, if necessary, to paper punch and house in a binder.European Folk Art Designs is engaging, diverse design collection meant to be used.

This collection of designs is very diverse, some being intricately detailed while others are simple. The animals, people, plants, and other designs are beautifully printed in black and white with helpful descriptions of time, place and uses included. If the pages printed sideways had been printed back to back, with the footnotes on the outer edges of the left hand side as well as the right, it would be easier to use in terms of copying or sketching. This is an excellent resource of pre-twentieth century design. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486437574/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_img

Its a nice and simple book. There was a few things I found useful and sadly it is the best design book I’ve found yet. I got two other design books of Easter European art that were not even as well made or stylistically sophisticated as this one. And they were way more expensive.

This book offers only a little taste of what I hoped for. But you will find some nice folk images in it.

I like books that show folk art from around the world. It has motifs from countries as Germany, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Poland, and Portugal. There are many bird and floral designs and those that could be put on mediums as pottery. This book is a generous representation of international folk art.

Nice drawings of folk art designs from various European countries. Just wish each had its own page so I could see the details better.

Drawings are almost childlike. Poor images.

Great over all view on early folk art designs of Europe....some of the designs are very simple and some are very complex....not a comprehensive book on European design but it is enough to wet your appetite for this kind of art work.

Not for using, more for inspiration but rather dull, I was looking for stencils to use . this is just a collection of rather dull drawings

I am very pleased that I ordered this and will use it often .

More an information book. Images of over 20 different countries folk art, not what I was expecting but may be useful for my embroidery work.

an average reference book, but other than this - nothing in-depth

Good book, many high-quality illustrations