Designs of desire1999

Designs of Desire - Architectural and Ornament Prints and Drawings 1500-1850 is a fascinating survey, which introduces a wide selection of drawings and prints not associated with paintings and frescoes, but with architecture, sculpture, and the applied arts. Explored here is not just the world of elevations and plans for churches, palaces, and gardens, but also designs for temporary decorations for triumphal entries, firework displays, coronations, funerals, and many aspects of pageantry and feasting. Here are drawings for metalwork, textiles, books, ceramics, and glass and, above all ornament designs made expressly as sources for the most sophisticated craftsmen working within these disciplines. This helps to remind us that most artists, until comparatively recent times, were not...