"The Beautiful Necessity" by Claude Fayette Bragdon. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
Turner presents a collection of collages of statues, flowers, pictures, photographs, drawings, amulets, pieces of shell, and bits of earth in 100 illustrations, 80 of which are in color.
Though the functional beauty of the Arts and Crafts movement has long been a part of American culture, it is now revitalized by simplicity seekers trying to counteract the fast pace of contemporary living. The elegant simplicity of Craftsman ideals is time defying, as the rooms and furnishings of The Beautiful Necessity: Decorting With Arts and Crafts will reveal. From the traditional--Greene and Greene, Gustav Stickley, Frank Lloyd Wright, and others--to the contemporary--Berkely Mills, Warren Hiles, East/West Furniture Design, and more--the Arts and Crafts movement is represented. All 140 exquisite photographs demonstrate how the Craftsman style has brought stunning warmth yet utilitarian ease to homes past and present.
A noted American architect of the early twentieth century discusses universal principles behind the harmonious forms and proportions of ancient and modern buildings. Seven essays by Claude Bragdon offer a master class in the architectural union of art, beauty, and science. His observations and analyses encompass a tremendous variety of buildings, from Gothic cathedrals to Giotto's Campanile to the Taj Mahal, and his examples extend far beyond architecture to the natural symmetry found in the feathers of a peacock's tail, snowflakes, plants, and the human face. "Art in all its manifestations is an expression of the cosmic life," notes the author, "and its symbols constitute a language by means of which this life is published and represented. Art is at all times subject to the 'Beautiful Necessity' of proclaiming the 'world order'." Bragdon's theories are illuminated by his graceful black-and-white line drawings, which portray the essentials of line and proportion as expressed in many well-known buildings and paintings.
"A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard"--
When the Duke of Lexington meets the mysterious Baroness von Seidlitz-Hardenberg on a transatlantic liner, he is fascinated. She’s exactly what he’s been searching for—a beautiful woman who interests and entices him. He falls hard and fast—and soon proposes marriage. And then she disappears without a trace… For in reality, the “baroness” is Venetia Easterbrook—a proper young widow who had her own vengeful reasons for instigating an affair with the duke. But the plan has backfired. Venetia has fallen in love with the man she despised—and there’s no telling what might happen when she is finally unmasked…
Brooklyn-based design studio Workstead masterfully combines traditional inspiration with contemporary elegance. Workstead designs one-of-a-kind interiors and pieces that balance beauty with necessity, and this book presents a special blend of their tour-de-force historic renovations and innovative yet elegant new constructions. Over the past decade, the multidisciplinary design firm has earned rapid and wide acclaim for both their residential interiors as well as for larger-scale projects, such as the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn and the Rivertown Lodge in Hudson, New York. In all their projects, Workstead considers both clients and community, working with local artisans to create meticulously crafted modern interiors, architecture, and furniture designs inflected by history. As T: The New York Times Style Magazine put it, Workstead “are known as sophisticated pack rats who surround themselves with objects that have a story to tell,” and described their collective design philosophy as “a cozy, updated version of early Americana, with wood plank floors and a mix of vintage and refined custom-built furniture pieces that are almost Scandinavian in their restraint.”
Claude Bragdon (1866-1946) was a first-generation modernist architect, as well as an illustrator, critic, theorist and theater designer. Bragdon practiced architecture in Rochester, New York throughout the Progressive Era. Although his masterpiece, the New York Central Railroad Station, was demolished in the 1960s-70s, the First Universalist Church, the Bevier Memorial Building, the Peterborough Bridge near Toronto, and nearly 100 residences remain today. A prolific and influential writer, Bragdon published more than twenty books and hundreds of articles. He was nationally known for his graphic art, his writing on the fourth dimension, his Song & Light Festivals of 1915-1918, and his role in theater's New Stagecraft. He had technical and artistic expertise in many disciplines, making it difficult to categorize his work into a specific stylistic trend. Bragdon's work as an early modernist is important both in its own right and as a key to other 20th Century architects' work. The book includes a complete bibliography of Bragdon's published work, a timeline and an index. Contributors: Eugenia Victoria Ellis, Paul Emmons, Marcia Feuerstein, Marie Frank, Jean France, Joscelyn Godwin, Linda Dalrymple Henderson, Christina Malathouni, Jonathan Massey, Mary Nixon, Joan Ockman, Andrea Reithmayr and Richard Guy Wilson.
