Fractured Hypnosis

There is a particular kind of design drawing that reveals more about an era than any finished object ever could. This 1910 floor design by Winold Reiss, annotated at its base in careful lettering as "Floor: Black Belgian Marble and Royal Grey," is one of those drawings. It is a working document from the hand of one of America's most visionary and culturally significant designers, and it is also, entirely on its own terms, a work of striking graphic beauty.

The composition is a dense, energetic field of triangular forms, all rendered in near-black on a warm cream ground, with the pale amber of the surrounding paper visible at the edges. The triangles vary enormously in size and proportion, from large sweeping forms that span a significant portion of the composition to tiny slivers that appear almost as negative space between larger shapes. They share edges, overlap, point in every direction, and create a surface of considerable visual complexity and movement. There is no obvious repeat unit, no grid beneath the composition that you can locate and follow. Instead the triangles appear to have been arrived at through a process of intuitive subdivision, each new line creating new relationships between the forms on either side of it. The result is something that sits midway between a shattered glass surface and a Cubist painting, between pure geometric abstraction and the suggestion of perspective and depth.

Reproduced as a Huecraft archival fine art print on premium heavyweight paper with fade-resistant inks, the full depth of the near-black forms and the warmth of the cream ground are preserved with complete fidelity to Reiss's original drawing.

Hang it horizontally in a living room where its bold graphic energy fills the wall with movement and intelligence. At a workstation it brings exactly the kind of visual stimulation that suits a space for creative thinking. In a dining room with dark furniture and warm lighting it has the confident graphic authority of something that knows precisely what it is. It suits interiors drawn to geometric abstraction, Art Deco heritage, and design that was made to be built but deserves to be seen.