A NEW book explores some of Brighton’s best-known sights from an architectural point of view.

John Piper’s Brighton Aquatints is by Alan Powers, a historian of graphic arts of the mid-century.

It reveals 12 views of the city as you have probably never seen them before.

Mr Powers said: “Brighton has buildings unlike those of any other British seaside resort, from the onion-domed Royal Pavilion, to the Victorian hotels and churches and the sleek modernism of Wells Coates’ Embassy Court.

“These, and other features such as the lost West Pier, the stucco-covered terraces and even the humble rows of houses seen from the railway station, appear in John Piper’s 1939 book, Brighton Aquatints.

“Issued in the first months of the Second World War by the publishers Gerald Duckworth, this luxurious limited edition with the artist’s signature of thunderous dark skies, was both strangely inappropriate and perfectly on cue for its time.

“Despite the British public having other things to worry about, Brighton Aquatints was extensively and enthusiastically reviewed.

“Escapism in art and literature was one of the understandable responses to the war, and the route often led back to the 19th century, the period that Piper’s book evoked, with its mixture of Regency stucco and Victorian red brick and cast iron.

“Although sequels were planned, Brighton Aquatints is the only genuine example from the whole of Piper’s oeuvre of a proper ‘artist’s book’.

“It was unique in other ways. No other British artist used the aquatint medium at this time for a whole book but for Piper, the technique had a particular meaning in relation to his subject matter.

"When aquatint became popular in the Picturesque period, limpid hand-colouring was often added to the prints of architectural designs and picturesque views so Piper himself coloured 50 special copies of the edition of 250, with some help from John Betjeman.”

Mr Powers said that 80 years on, he wanted to reproduce the whole of the plates at the original size, along with the text in both plain and coloured versions, to share the pleasure of Piper’s creation with the benefits of modern colour reproduction, recreating the experience of turning the pages to discover each successive scene, with Piper’s words on the facing page.

Mr Powers said: “Brighton Aquatints offers insights into the spirit of the late 1930s as a remarkable period of transition.”

The book, from the Mainstone Press, is on sale now for £35.