Martin Battersby (1914–1982)

Why is it that the more books about Art Nouveau that I read the less quality they seem to be? I refuse to stop loving the art style though, even if its publication history is full of lacklustre books… This volume was small, so I figured that they would pack it full of illustrations and keep the chatter to a minimum, but a solid 50% of the book was unreadable, rambling, academic-immitation text. I honestly couldn’t follow the narrative the author was trying to establish, since he jumped from topic to topic in the midst of paragraphs and used such antiquated grammatical style that I felt like I wasn’t even able to comprehend each sentence properly. In typical old-style fashion as well, the text of the book came first, with all the illustrative material crammed at the end - which as you may remember is one of my pet peeves about art books, since it requires the reader to constantly flip between sections and constantly makes us lose our place and train of thought. At least the range of illustrations was decent once I skipped over to them, but compared to some of the other books I’ve read it wasn’t very impressive. They showcase a range of materials which focuses on the physical manifestations of the Art Nouveau style (home decor and jewelry), but leaves many examples of the traditional forms out that one would expect (posters and fine artworks). I wonder if this book was put together with haste and whether they actually made a point of studying the range of the style in depth, because there seriously seems to be some missing content and context in their discussion.… (more)