William Morris’s Flowers (Victoria and Albert Museum) (Artists In Focus)

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It’s safe to say that William Morris (1834-1896) had a soft spot for flowers - his wallpapers, tapestries and textiles show his complete fascination with them. Did you know that in his lifetime Morris designed over 50 wallpapers, with even more being produced by his fellow designers at Morris & Co.? EmeryWalker's House, Hammersmith, London. Walker, an expert typographer, was a friend of Morris’s and his home was close to Kelmscott House. It is filled with Morris & Co designs The design owes much to Burne-Jones's study of the Parthenon frieze in the British Museum. He copied the Parthenon frieze in 1864 in a sketchbook held currently in the V&A. A further drawing at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery depicts the figure on the right, sitting upright, close to the figure of Ares in the group of seated deities, taken from the figures in the Parthenon frieze. All his wallpapers contained stylised fruit, flowers and foliage motifs. These expressed his love of nature, but his first designs also reflect his interest in medieval sources at the time.

The firm initially focused on making expensive, one-off pieces of painted furniture, embroideries and stained glass. But Morris’s move into wallpaper design underlines his early understanding of the importance of making economical, more mass-produced work that could reach a wider audience. Red House in Bexleyheath, Kent, the home Morris conceived when just 24 and designed by his friend, the architect Philip Webb Henry James described William Morris as "the poet and paper-maker" in 1881 and, despite his prolific work as a designer of stained glass, textiles, tapestries, furniture, and books, it is for his wallpapers that Morris is best known today. Reinventing the decorative vocabulary of his time, Morris believed that "any decoration is futile…when it does not remind you of something beyond itself." He turned to nature for inspiration, seeking to "turn a room into a bower." Throughout his more than three decades as a wallpaper designer, the native field and garden flowers of the English countryside proved a touchstone. Laura: William Morris and his daughter May used repeated shapes and colours to create beautiful printed fabric and wallpaper.William Morris created over 50 different wallpaper designs, with the first being in 1862, during the intensely creative period when he was decorating his home, Red House, near Bexleyheath, Kent. That project also provided the catalyst for the founding of his company Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.

KS2 Art Video Lessons are a brilliant way for children to stay engaged and active in their learning. They work just as well in the classroom as they do in a home learning environment. In this video lesson, Hollie will show children different leaves, flowers, birds and insects; and she encourages children (ages 7-11) to try to create a symmetrical pattern on their own designs. It is these elements that gave his wallpapers a richness and character that could not be achieved by machines. Rachy72 Great quality & design A beautiful mix of soft pink and olive green colours in a William Morris design which suits our period home. The tone of the green matches the Farrow & Ball French grey of our painted walls. The bedding washed beautifully with no ironing needed. I am now looking at buying another set for our guest room. These William Morris patterns would be great for home decor crafts, such as these DIY tile coasters.Charles Voysey was one of the Arts and Craft movement's most successful architects, as well as producing some of its most striking designs for furniture and other interior elements, including wallpaper and textiles. Elegant and quietly expressive, Voysey's work demonstrated the designer's strong belief in 'less is more'; his drawings for flat-surface design demonstrate the same restraint and interest in clear space that is evident in his furniture and other objects. Although Voysey wouldn't have accepted it himself – as a British practitioner of Arts and Crafts design he would have had little enthusiasm for such an exuberant, 'European' style – it is generally agreed that his dramatic large-scale florals laid the foundations for the development of Art Nouveau, particularly the work of Czech painter and decorative artist Alphonse Mucha. I'm going to repeat a pattern in horizontal rows across the paper. Red, yellow, blue, blue, yellow, red. From looking at William Morris’s patterns and designs, it’s obvious that he was inspired by nature. His textile patterns and wallpapers incorporate plants, fruits, flowers, and leaves. Very much like the art nouveau prints of Maurice Verneuil.

To William Morris- designer, socialist, environmentalist and poet- the image of the natural world as bountifully rich in the mysteries and highest pleasures of life cannot be removed from his hopes for a fairer, better society. This generous and fundamentally hopeful vision animates his enduringly popular designs for interiors, which take as their primary subject the “glorious drama of the earth”. William Morris was remembered for being a highly skilled designer who could somehow turn the sprawling, tangled beauty of the English countryside into a form of pattern that was both clear but also beautiful. He had an inate love and devotion for this environment but was also a highly articulate artist who could carry his illustrations over into a number of different mediums. The qualities of his work have since inspired off-shoots of art movements across the world, and his reputation was certainly strong in the UK, but not restricted to this region. Many of his floral patterns have been reproduced from their date of conception all the way up to the present day and there remains a continued support for the Arts and Crafts Movement, a group in which his role was pivotal. Morris’s political activities began when he joined the Social Democratic Federation at its inaugural meeting in June 1881. However, the organisation soon became factionalised and Morris broke from the Social Democratic Federation in 1884, disagreeing with its leadership. Morris established his own political group, the Socialist League, a more radical collective that sought a revolutionary overturn by the mobilised working classes.Cattersue William Morris design Bed linen in a William Morris design. What a privilege. Pleased with good quality. By the early 1870s Morris had fully mastered the art of creating complex repeating patterns. As a result, his designs often featured a distinctive structure that involved superimposing one pattern over another.

Whether we consider his floral fascination to be aesthetic, personal, political or symbolic, Morris’ designs have inspired us for generations. He has come to represent British design and to be a hero for the humble, everyday flowers that surround us. In Britain, paper printed with patterns has been used for decorating walls since the 16th century. By the late 19th century wallpapers were widely used by all classes, in homes and also in public buildings. William Morris designed a number of wallpapers, all with repeating patterns based on natural forms. During the rallies Morris and his comrades attended, they carried banners to identify their political allegiance. In this banner, the image of Adam and Eve has been borrowed from Burne-Jones’s illustration to Morris’s socialist novel ‘A Dream of John Ball’. The novel followed the story of a priest who was one of the leaders of the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. John Ball believed all people were created equal, asking "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?" If you enjoyed this art video lesson then have a look through our many fun and educational KS2 Twinkl Art Video Lessons.

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It appears, however, that nothing ignited his creative faculties quite like a garden or a walk in nature. A stroll among the willows near his Kelmscott Manor home was cited by May Morris as the abiding vision behind her father’s creation of 1887 design Willow Boughs. His enthusiasm for the everyday splendour of the English countryside is reflected in the opening remarks of an 1889 essay entitled Under an Elm-Tree; or thoughts in the Country-Side; “Midsummer in the country — here you may walk between the fields and hedges that are as it were one huge nosegay for you, redolent of bean-flowers and clover and sweet hay and elder-blossom.” A contemporary of William Morris was Christopher Dresser but he preferred industrial processes over handcrafted. You may also like the Art Nouveau pochoir butterflies of Seguy or the Alphonse Mucha posters. Morris grew up in Walthamstow, East London though during most of his lifetime it was actually a small village with a relatively rural feel. The young man travelled around nearby Epping Forest and other scenes of natural beauty within Essex and this helped to give him a love of nature from a very early age. His use of flowers and plants within his patterned designs was never just for aesthetic value - he longed to remind victorians about what we have, and what we could lose to industrialisation. In a sense, these concerns have never been satsfied and are now even more acute. The city has since expanded and swallowed up his beloved Walthamstow, just as he may have predicted. He may however be pleased to see the changing attitudes to the environment of the current generation within the UK and globally, and see it as a sign of hope for the future. The Lament’ is considered to be Edward Burne-Jones most significant painting in the classical style of the late 1860s. Burne-Jones was a life-long friend of William Morris after the two met at Oxford University, he was a founding partner of Morris & Co. as well as an established painter working in the pre-Raphaelite style. Key stylistic features of this work can be seen in the chalky colours, simple outlines, and low relief of the figures. The work is washed in a mood of restrained sadness, characteristic of other paintings in 1866. Born into a wealthy middle-class family, Morris enjoyed a privileged childhood, as well as a sizable inheritance, meaning he would never struggle to earn his own income. He spent his childhood drawing, reading, and exploring forests and grand buildings, which triggered his fascination with natural landscapes and architecture.