Page 6 RAIN September/October 1984 Dining room armchair, 1906, by Charles Greene (FROM: Greene & Greene: Furniture and Related Designs) The best books I've seen on specific craftsmen are Greene & Greene: Architecture as Fine Art, by Randell L. Makinson (1977, $19.95 from: Peregrine Smith, Box 667, Layton, UT 84041) and Greene & Greene: Furniture and Related Designs, by Randell L. Makinson (1982,161 pp., $19.95 from; Peregrine Smith, Box 667, Layton, UT 84041). C. Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene were brothers who practiced architecture in southern California between 1900 and 1930. Both books are well written and contain beautiful photographs of the brothers' fine sense of design, consummate craftsmanship, and eye for detail. Like many Arts and Crafts pioneers in Europe, the Greenes designed every part of a house, including the furniture, stained-glass windows, lighting fixtures, and carpets. Frank Lloyd Wright also worked in this tradition; see The Decorative Designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, by David A, Hanks (1979, $12.95 from: E. P. Dutton, 2 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016). Indeed, Frank Lloyd Wright echoed the ideals of the Craftsman house in his Prairie architecture, although he did not believe that hand craftsmanship should be revived. ("Prairie Architecture" and "The Art and Craft of the Machine," in Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, selected by Edgar Kauffman and Ben Raeburn, 1960, 346 pp., $9.95 from Horizon Press Publications, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010). Somewhat of an adjunct to Arts and Crafts was Art Nouveau, a decorative style suffused with whimsy whose motifs were derived from nature. Like Arts and Crafts proponents. Art Nouveau adherents typically worked in several genres, and they focused on the decorative and applied arts—furniture, book design, and so on. Some of the same artists worked in both Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau modes, although Art Nouveau was not a political philosophy, and indeed, William Morris thought it much too extravagant. The lines in Art Nouveau are sinuous: twining vines, stylized leaves and flowers, and asymmetrical compositions. A good introduction is Art Nouveau, by Robert Schmutzler (1962,1978, 224 pp., $9.95 from: Harry N. Abrams, 110 East 59th Street, New York, NY 10022). Much good design is indeed based on forms in nature, and study of the forms in nature can reveal the interplay of beauty and utility, form and function. Nature as Designer, by Bertel Bager (1966,176 pp., $7.95 from Van Nostrand Reinhold, 135 West 50th Street, New York, NY 10020) includes both photos and commentary on curious and peculiar plant forms. Patterns in Nature, by Peter Stevens (1974, 256 pp., $7.95 from: Little, Brown & Company, 34 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02106), is a wonderful exploration of the curves and crevices in nature. Nature should be our inspiration—not a direct model to copy—and "we should also find our inspiration in the archetypes, elemental solutions of design evolved from the study of nature by the generations Draioing from Oscar Wilde's "Salome" (1903) by Marcus Behmer, typical of the Art Nouveau style
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