[TheForge] Re: need help on a project

[Mike Spencer]

PF wrote:

> I went snuffling through a string of links form your post Mike,
> and ran into this little droolworthy site.
> http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/belgium/brussels/index.html

Yeah, cool.  I love that kind of stuff.  In some cases I'm just
overwhelmed -- imagine commuting every day on the Paris Metro from one
of Hector Guimard's stations.  In other cases, I'm afraid the
execution of Art Nouveau designs suffers from the same defect that a
lot of large-scale ironwork does: Knocks your eyes out at a 100 feet,
even at 30 feet, but then turns out not to very much exploit the
plasticity/malleability of iron when you get up close.  Turns out to
be a sort of pen & ink line drawing -- definitely cool and elegant but
not quite making it because it doesn't exploit the central mystique of
forged iron.

Too bad "they" wouldn't let the guy who did those web pages take
photos inside Horta's house & studio.  In the Dover book Art Nouveau
Decorative Ironwork there are a few plates showing Horta's work "in a
town house, Brussels".  I wonder if that's inside Horta's own house
and they're just being coy somehow.  (Some other plates of interior
work mention the street address of the house.)


Thanks for the pointer,
- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^