One of the more famous 'landscape' Dutch tiles shows a man in a small boat sailing away from the viewer, up the Issel or some other river in the Netherlands. The rounded end of his boat lifts out of the water as the wind billows the sails and tilts the craft. The river surface is slighly rippling in the gentle breeze. In the distance lays a town, perhaps Deventer. When I look at this tile I feel transported to a place and time long ago.

The Dutch produced the greatest painters in the world, and many of their works hang in museums, or in private collections out of the reach of mere mortals. Sometimes something is so beautiful you want to own it, or at least possess it a short while. What to do? Buy a tile. Dutch tiles were frequently copied from paintings and like paintings they depict landscapes, interior domestic scenes, flowers (especially tulips), ships at sea and all sorts of wonderous things.

Hans van Lemmen has compiled a nice overview of the history of Dutch tilemaking. He says it was natural for a people who had been occupied by the Spanish for a long time to have become aware of the 'Hispano-Moresque' tradition of tile making. But many other factors conspired to make tile making the "signature form of decorative art" of the Dutch. For one thing, the little country has many river banks and lots of clay. For another, during the 16th Century, many Flemish tile artisans moved to the Netherlands to set up shop and enjoy the expanding Dutch economy. Another major factor was the incredible growth of a middle class that wanted to tiles for home use.

These uses included lining fire places, mantles, and the wall areas around them, as well as the areas where candles sat, in order to prevent house fires. The Dutch also lined their cellers to prevent water seeping into them. Areas exposed to much wear and tear, such as passageways, staircases, and doors were also covered with tiles. And, in a country where hygiene is a defining national characteristic tiles were important accessories in kitchens because they were easy to clean.

van Lemmen covers about 400 years of tilemaking, with most of his emphasis on the "Golden Age" of the 16th-17th centuries. The book contains a nice balance of history and photographs of tiles and 'in situ' settings of Dutch tiles in the Netherlands and other parts of the world. This is a book for relative beginners, but beautiful enough for anyone who loves Dutch art.

Hans van Lemmen has put together a beautiful and very readablebook on Dutch tiles. "Delftware Tiles" is well researchedand lavishly illustrated with color photos of all kinds of Dutch tiles from the 16th century to the present. No Delft or tile collector's library is complete without this book. It's also a great coffee table book. The 32 page paperback is an earlier and completely different work by van Lemmen -- it's a good primer on Delftware tiles, but it's much smaller and all in black & white.

I just returned from Sheboygan WI home of Kroeler--the bathroom fixtures firm. While there, I visited the Kroeler Art Museum which houses several "interesting" public restrooms. One of the more amusing pastimes in this little town is inspecting restrooms filled with Kroler plumbing fixtures -- and modern tiles. The Kroeler Design Center displays a number of newer items.

I was supprised to see no mention of Kroeler's modern works in this book, but hey, it's tough to cover 1,000 years of anything. Several major European firms are mentioned over and over, however. The bulk of the tiles displayed in this book (in situ in most cases) are located in Europe, which makes sense. Until the Dutch started using tiles as ballast in their sailing ships, not many tiles made it to the New World.

The book opens with a discussion of the earliest tiles found in Europe, those created 'For God and Earthly Princes.' Many of these tiles are found in Moorish-Christian Spain. The next chapter, 'Painted Magnificence' looks at 15th Century tiles from Italy, the early Maiolica (book's spelling) from Italy is beautiful. Some of it is too ornate for my tastes, but there are several lovely pieces. Later sections cover my favorites--Dutch, northern French, English and Scandanavian and Art Deco.

Tiles have been used in buildings because of their fire resistance properties (fire places and mantles in particular), hygienic qualities (bath houses and kitchens), and low need for maintenance (businesses, public buildings, and transportation sites). Some of the most amazing tiles are found in the Underground Stations in London. Other cities (Paris, Toronto, New York) have followed suit to a certain extent. I have taken the subway all over London just to see the station decoration. The book shows details from the Shrub Hill station in Worcester England which is decorated with Maw and Company majolica tiles (book spelling). The station scene depicting 'Jack climbs the Beanstalk' was executed in 1875, and thank goodness no one modernized it.

In a section titled the 'March of the Machine' a page from the Villeroy and Boch tile catalogue is presented along with many examples of mass produced tiles 'in situ.' 'The Triump of the Designer' takes the reader forward to the Art Deco period when Minton, W.B. Simpson and Sons, Wedgwood and other china manufacturers created art tiles for bathrooms, kitchens, and public buildings. Shown are Harrods Meat Hall in London, tin-glazed tiles in a private home in Amsterdam, and the kitchen of the palatial summer home of the Czar.

'The New World' examines tile displays in America, from New York City to California. Shown are a riverboat scene in a ceramic plaque at the Fulton street subway station on Lexington Avenue in New York, the 1913 Dixie Terminal in Cincinnati, and a picture of a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer created by the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in Pennsylvania.

The book is beautiful. It contains detailed and larger photos of whole walls in situ. It is a survey type book, covering 1,000 years of tiles in Europe and America -- a good book if you contemplate collecting tiles, or visiting the places where tiles are mounted. Unfortunately, much was lost in WWII. Luckily, much remains.

Tiles: 1,000 Years of Architectural Decoration by Hans van Lemmen (with a chapter by Susan Tunick) is a spectacularly beautiful book. This richly visual tour of tiles from medieval through modern times is fascinating from both an architectural and artistic point of view. Tiles both practical and fanciful, machine manufactured or handmade and painted, are lushly photographed. For the artist or tile muralist, this is a wonderfully inspirational and exciting resource! It is the best book on tiles that I have ever seen, visually appealing and lovely. Highly recommended.

These days, many of us are becoming reacquainted with the art of our parents or grandparents...not the clunky Victorian stuff, but the wonderful jazzy "art" of the "nouveau." Sometimes I wonder why we ever got away from it, but I suspect two world wars and an economic depression in the 20th century played a big role.

In this lovely historical overview of the Art Nouveau period of tilemaking, Hans van Lemmen provides many up-close examples of individual decorative tiles, as well as 'in situ' photographs of the architectural designs employing these tiles. He begins by describing the Art Nouveau movment itself, which he says can be traced to various sources including the negative reaction to neoclassicism by various 19th Century artists and intellectuals. Some of them felt neoclassical art was pagan and wanted to return to a Gothic or Christian theme. Others reacted to the commercial and industrial use of the neoclassical and wanted to return to a naturalistic theme. In addition, Western artists during this period were heavily influenced by Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian art, which they incorporated into their work. It should surprise no one that one example Van Lemmen provides is a tile executed about 1900 which shows yellow and orange sunflowers (ala Van Gogh who died in 1890).

The book covers the major Art Nouveau centers. The section on Northern Europe (heavy emphasis on France where the movement may have begun) shows salon panels in private homes and other interior applications; Central Europe (especially Bohemia and Hungary) shows many exterior applications; Southern Europe, which features some of the Art Nouveau maiolica found in Barcelona; and the "New World" which includes the Bayard Building on Bleeker Street in New York City designed by Louis Sullivan (Chicago School of Architecture). Many of Van Lemmen's photographs include "fantastical" designs depicting nature, mythology, and abstract decorative subjects. Overall, this book is an informative introduction to the topic of Art Nouveau tiles and their uses and the section on Eastern Europe is worth the price of the book.