Fin de Siecle

This charming, handsomely produced, in-depth survey of British book illustrations from the late 1880s to 1900 unravels a maze of influences and contradictory currents. Leading designers imitating Aubrey Beardsley worked in an art nouveau style yet disclaimed any connection with that idiom. William Morris, high priest of the hand-made book, was ``blind to readability and balance in his own productions.'' With the Arts and Crafts movement, books were treated almost as buildings, their paper, decoration and binding as architectural components. Covering such illustrators as Charles Ricketts, Laurence Housman and Walter Crane, with chapters on children's books and on the impact of American designers on British illustration, art critic Houfe surveys a feverishly creative period that ran the gamut from the dashing impetuosity of E. Gordon Craig's broadsheet style to the puckish humor of F. H. Townsend's ``Georgian School'' drawings. (May)