Monday, August 11, 2014

Briefly About William Morris Designs

By Tanisha Berg


Great English textile designer William Morris was born in 1834 in Essex, in very wealthy family of a financier. Although his wide interests include writing, poetry, architecture and numerous other areas, his main interest was textile design. William Morris designs are detailed, innovative and really attractive, even today. He revived traditional methods and procedures, as well as materials.

He was highly interested in medieval history and architecture. During his study in Oxford, he met his future friend and co-worker Edward Burne-Jones. Once he passed his finals, he got an apprentice with Gothic revival architect George Edmund Street, where he met another one of his future close friends and collaborators, Phillip Web. Both these gentlemen had great influence on his work.

Together with Web, he designed his first family home, in a place called Bexleyheath, maybe ten miles from London. Unusual L shape, uncharacteristic for the time, and interesting construction make this lovely house really unique. It was made from red tiles and bricks and named Red House. Red House is today open for visitors and it is really interesting to see its interior decoration and painted walls.

In next few years this talented designer was preoccupied with wallpaper design. The first one was named The Trellis, and it still looks really innovative, although it was designed back in 1862. His company was involved in many different projects. They have designed The Green dining Room, now displayed as the Morris Room in London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

In 1875, he became the owner of the entire company and renamed it into Morris And Co. He was highly interested in textile dyeing at the time. He didn't want to use chemical, alkaline dyes, and he used organic dyes such as indigo and different root dyes instead. He was highly concerned about environmental pollution and one of the first green activists ever.

Thanks to his undeniable talent, his designs were highly popular. He made numerous beautifully designed woven wool furnishing fabrics, and was highly occupied with printing textiles. One of his lovely patterns called Peacock and Dragon is really nice example of his work in this area. Although he also wrote, especially poetry, he will be memorized by his extraordinary designs in the first place.

Another interesting thing he was occupied with was stain glass design. His company created numerous really attractive examples of this art, including lovely stained window in Trinity church in Boston. In fact, this company created all kinds of artistic things, including lovely furnishing textiles, dyed fabrics and really attractive tapestries.

His first repeating pattern for wallpaper was manufactured in 1864. He used the old technique of hand woodblock printing. Thanks to him, natural colors such as indigo and madder were reinstated. His favorite activity was the production of woven and printed fabrics, and his immortal designs are still in use and highly popular even today.

Imaginative, highly detailed and absolutely unique examples of his work can be seen in different galleries and museums all over the world. He designed extraordinary tapestries, lovely stained windows, embroideries, wall papers, painted silk and many other decorative items. His enormous talent and dedication really made a great difference in design world.




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