Fraktur

Johann Heinrich Otto

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

By 1770, Otto, a German émigré, had begun to make various forms of fraktur, a style of decorative calligraphy named after a sixteenth-century German typeface. Otto’s skill is evident in the pleasing checks and balances of color and form he achieved in the composition of repetitive motifs. For example, the parrots perched at either side of the sheet and the two peacocks that cross necks above the tulip are nearly identical in form but vary in the patterning on their wings. Touches of blue enhance the harmony among the reds, greens, and yellows that dominate in Pennsylvania German fraktur designs.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art