William Morris’s Influence on Textile Design

By Priscilla Brant

Originally published in Needle Pointers, December 1994/January 1995

The magnificent five-panel screen, stitched by Priscilla Brant in the manner of William Morris is a joy to behold. Priscilla, also an artist in oils, painted this same design in a second five-panel screen.

William Morris was a master of design for many types of textile and printing arts. Because of this design influence in the fields of embroidery, carpets, wall­ paper, fabrics, and tapestry, I will review his research of design, his teaching theories as well as how he attempted to control the quality of materials, designs and their production. One design area of particular significance, the repeat patterns which still strongly influence textiles today, will be discussed as well as Morris’ influence in canvas work and crewel embroidery.

A study of the historical period during which William Morris lived (1834-1896) and a study of the embroidery styles developed by him will show how significant his influence was on the decorative arts. His life spanned the long Victorian Era which included the Industrial Revolution with its unprecedented growth in material wealth that resulted in a very unsettled period of history. Since the Victorian women of the middle and upper classes were isolated from the public eye, embroidery was an important creative outlet for them. Their most popular needlework was Berlin wool work which first was published in 1804 and presented thousands of colored patterns. These patterns, known as point-papers, were made on square paper, similar to the graph paper we work today. The colors were hand painted, square by square.

Morris’ family background is significant, especially since he inherited such great wealth that he never needed to work. His wealth allowed him the freedom to reflect on life rather than struggle just to survive. William Morris was born on March 24, 1834 at the Elm House in Walthamstow, just outside London. Morris had phenomenal energy and power of concentration. He seemed never to tire of designing. In 1840 when the family had grown to four brothers and four sisters, the family moved to Woodford Hall. Morris once went with his father to the Queen Elizabeth Lodge by Chingford Hatch in Epping Forest. In these rooms hung faded greenery giving the impression of romance which developed Morris’ interest in floral pattern.

Then in 1848, at fifteen he entered Marlborough College. He showed a strong interest in exploring the churches and monuments surrounding the school including the ancient mysterious circle of Avbury and the Savensnake Forest. Because of ill health much of his time was spent in the college library where he researched Gothic architecture and archeology. The illuminated books of the Middle Ages drew his interest. This passion for all things medieval directed his search to the Gothic architecture and furnishings.

In 1853, he went to Oxford to attend Exeter College, and here he met his lifetime friend Edward Coley Burne-Jones. Together Morris and Burne-Jones found interest in romantic chivalry and Roman art. By the end of 1856 Morris left the schooling at Oxford but remained in Oxford to pursue his new interest in painting, which was partly the result of the Flemish paintings which had moved him on his first trip abroad. Morris admired the Flemish master Jan Van Eyck who was born in 1390. His ability to observe made him a master of penetrating things from the outside toward the inside. Van Eyck’s paintings reflected a glowing color and the spirit of life. The Flemish craftsmen were weavers and their work often appeared in Van Eyck’s paintings. Other arts in which Morris developed an interest at this time were carving, embroidery and writing poetry. But his main reason for staying in Oxford was that he had met Janey Burden and started courting her. She became the prototype beauty of the Pre-Raphaelite painters; Rossetti, another of Morris’ friends, had discovered Janey Burden one evening at the theater in February 1857 and asked her to model. William Morris and Janey Burden were married April 26, 1859; but Janey continued to model for Rossetti.

On January 21, 1856 Morris entered the offices of George Edmund Street, a leading Gothic-Revival Architect who preferred to design the interiors of his commission. Morris’ interest in architecture developed early and stayed with him throughout his life, although he pursued a career as a designer. Street advocated the study of existing medieval embroideries and his influence can be seen in Morris’ painting La Belle Useult painted in 1858. On the left in the painting can be seen a blue tablecloth embroidered with thistle motifs – a pattern similar to his design and techniques in the Daisy hangings which were worked for the master bedroom at The Red House; and they are now in Kelmscott Manor. In 1856 while at Street’s Office, Morris met Philip Webb. Webb was to become a leading architect of the houses of his day. Morris felt that buildings should relate to their environment, both historically and geographically. He also preferred to use the local style and techniques from in the area. Frank Lloyd Wright was influenced by Morris’ theory of design. The geography around their homes is reflected in the different styles of homes they designed.

This view shows the five-panel screen closed.

While in France with Philip Webb, Morris decided to have Webb design a medieval house which became The Red House; it was Webb’s first commission and one of the first examples of Arts and Crafts Movement architecture. The Red House which was completed in the summer of 1860 was intended to provide a romantic community in which the artists and craftsmen could live a very simple lifestyle. For the walls Morris chose to have embroidered wall-hangings worked by himself and his wife Janey. Janey happened to be an exquisite needlewoman; Morris took great pains to create the complete environment. Three panels identified as St. Catharine, Guenevere and Penelope are in Kelmscott Manor. The St. Catharine embroidery, which is the only panel to retain its tree, has been applied to brown velvet instead of serge in the form of a curtain. St. Catharine embroidery was stitched by Janey. Penelope had the figure fully embroidered. There are close-ups of the heads to show the stitch techniques.

Morris studied design from Owen Jones, an English instructor of design, who preferred geometric styles with his main interest being abstract and geometric architectural forms. He was most noted as an architect although he was not identified with the Gothic Revival.

The Pre-Raphaelite Movement in Britain held the theory of design that art was to have a central ideal which was to be true to nature. Two other influences which affected the development of Morris’ mature style were his long working association with the silk dyer, Thomas Wardle, and his increasing interest in historical textile, going beyond the medieval era. Dyeing was one of the areas Morris was earliest concerned about because new sulfur dioxide dyes faded in the embroidery work. The coal-tar dyes known as aniline were brought into use in 1858. However, Morris desired subdued natural colors which these dyes did not provide. By 1875 Morris began his long collaboration and friendship with Thomas Wardle, a finisher in the Hencroft Dye Workshop of Leek, Staffordshire. Wardle and Morris demonstrated Morris’ tenacity and refusal to make do with the second rate. Morris set himself to the rediscovery of ancient recipes and traditions, plying Wardle with old herbals and experimenting himself with the dye vats. Thomas Wardle’s color preference influenced Morris in his selection of color schemes and patterns which caused Morris to prefer his own dyeing. At times the Wandle River at Merton Abbey was blue. It was not uncommon to see a rug laid out on the fields to dry or to be viewed. His palette included only the primary colors and brown: red from madder, blue from Indigo, yellow from the flowers of the field. Yellow dyes are the least permanent.

While at 17 Red Lion Square, Morris collected a number of single pieces of embroidery, which would be unpicked from time to time in order to discover the method by which they were made. This was how Morris developed his stitching techniques. Some of his favorite stitches included darning, running, long and short, and many of the surface stitches such as the chain stitch. The role he saw for stitches was to add or create the design and not to distract from the pattern itself. His stitch choices permitted the most freedom of interpretation and were not distracting in themselves.

Kelmscott Manor, in the Upper Thames Valley, became Morris’ country home in June 1871. This manor is truly where Morris’ embroidery was at home. Kelmscott, built in 1570, retains most of the original timberwork and stone fireplaces. Morris never owned the house. It is now a museum run by the Societies of Antiquaries. Here is housed a collection of the first pieces started by Morris’ wife, Janey, and daughter, May. The garden between the wall and the house was full of June flowers, and the roses were rolling over one another with the delicious super abundance of small well-tended gardens. The house itself was a fit guardian for all the beauty with its many gables.

May, his daughter, said it best; "Dad had a heaven-sent gift, an ability to see design in mass and not in line and to create numerous successful original designs in swift succession with little apparent effort." May became the head of the Embroidery section of Morris & Co. at the age of twenty-three. But after her mother’s death, she chose to remain at Kelmscott Manor and care for her sister. She continued to stitch and sell her work. A book which Morris studied and quoted frequently was Owen Jones’ Grammar of Ornament, 1856, which set up his principles in the arrangement of form and color:

1. True beauty results from that which the mind feels, will satisfy the eye, the intellect and the affections with an absence of any want.
2. Beauty of form is produced by lines growing out one from the other; there is no excessiveness; nothing could be removed and leave the design equally good or better.
3. Harmony of form consists in the proper balancing, the contrast of the straight with the inclined and the curved shapes.
4. In surface decoration all lines should flow out of a parent stem. Every ornament, however distant, should be traced to its branch and root. This is an Oriental practice.
5. Color is used to assist in the development of form and to distinguish objects or parts of objects one from another.
6. Color is assisted by light and shade, helping the undulations of form by the proper distribution of several colors.
7. The objects are best attained by the use of the primary colors on small surfaces and in small quantities, balanced and supported by the secondary and tertiary colors on the larger masses.
8. Colors should never be allowed to impinge upon each other.
9. Shapes are to be simple, triangular, circular and square. These are forms in all of nature.

Morris selected crewel work to promote his designs. In 1857, Morris began a piece of work: He embroidered a bird and a tree pattern, to which he added the words “If I can,” the translation of Van Eyck’s motto on his paintings. The technique Morris employed was not surface couching but a series of irregular long­short stitches randomly placed which formed a stiff cloth of similar texture and weight to that of a woven tapestry. The threads were coarse, brightly colored aniline-dyed crewel wool, and the charming design is enhanced now by its faded colors.

The Acanthus bed-hangings were worked in wool and in silk on a linen ground. The silk embroidery in the background is worked over almost the entire surface. Since he had little time to devote to embroidery, his last designs using this technique were drawn between 1878 and 1885. Many of his last designs were for cushion covers and firescreen panels.

A design cannot bring the whole countryside into a room but can only be the door for one’s imagination. The Gothic principle of simple colors and little perspective were two theories Morris tried to hold on to. What was to be on the wall should have relative depth rather than the illusion of depth. He developed a basic grid of leaf and flower, proliferation from the parent stem. But he did not lose the natural order of the subject.

The Cabbage and Vine tapestry was Morris’ own piece. In 1878 on a Gobelin tapestry loom he worked five hundred and sixteen hours to complete the weaving. He continued to design and weave, but most of the weaving was done by others in the weaving sheds at Merton Abbey.

The St. James commission of 1881 gave Morris the opportunity to design two new silk damasks, St. James and Oak. Small embroideries were always important since Morris had control of the colors of the silk and wool threads used for stitching. Morris believed women were his equal and should be allowed the choice of stitches; and for some women, such as Catharine Holiday, he gave them the right to chose their colors and threads.

In 1881, Morris & Co. was commissioned to decorate the Green Dining Room at the new Victoria and Albert Museum. Morris decorated the Green Room with walls paneled roughly with oak board to about six feet from the floor and about three feet of plaster worked in a rose pattern. He also designed the stained-glass windows. Louis Tiffany of Tiffany Glass studied Morris’ glass designs.

One of the earliest embroidery pieces, The Flowerpot, is a design taken directly from two samples of seventeenth-century Italian lace work acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1875. This was one of the few designs available in any form of kit. The choices of kits were just the line drawing on the canvas; the design colored on the canvas, including the threads to stitch; the painted canvas and threads with samples of stitch choices worked on the edge; or the design stitched and only the background left to do.

Much of Morris’ wallpaper and many of his printed textiles were adaptations of his embroidery, such as Chrysanthemum, the flower is stylized to simplify the object, Fruit and Rose and Lily. Woodpecker tapestry at Walthamstow was woven in 1885 from a design entirely created by Morris. It was simply two bright birds among the apple branches of a strong brown-trunked tree, wrapped about by a magnificent blue acanthus.

Morris was concerned with helping the average man and wanting to beautify their houses as well, so he produced Linoleum carpeting for the less wealthy. Morris only designed one linoleum which was registered on June 7, 1875. Daisy, Wreath and Artichoke were used for Wilton carpets. The weavers of the hand-knotted carpets sat side by side in front, and the carpet was woven by section and gradually wound onto the lower beam and warp correspondingly wound from the upper beam. The yard for the pile was cut into two-inch long tufts and knotted around two warp threads, tuft by tuft, according to the paper design point-paper, which was attached in front of the weaver and the loom.

A small number of wallpapers were designed by Morris from 1862 to 1866, but there was little interest in wall-paper until 1872. Fruit and Trellis used a turnover or mirror repeat design. These repeats were on the diagonal and are known as diaper patterns.

Morris’ theory of design for embroidery or wallpaper or anything which was to hang on the walls, was that it should be a flat design with soft colors, have a delicate drawing and values. The subject should be inspired by nature but be stylized rather than pictorial. The 1864 Fruit and Pomegranate wallpaper shows a pronounced diagonal structure.

For his chintzes he had three phases. First the block printing showed the repeat patterns clearly. Tulip and Willow in 1873, and Honeysuckle and African Marigold, 1875, were totally Morris designs. Second phase was from 1881 to 1885 when Morris created twenty designs which were flatter, with less line drawing and simpler, such as Snakehead, Flowerpot, Honeysuckle, Rose and Strawberry Thief, which shows his primary colors. The Third phase began in 1891 when Morris designs combined naturalistic and formal details as seen in Daffodil. Morris drew three designs, Brother Rabbit, Bird and Anemone, and Rose and Thistle to be printed by the indigo discharge method. They were registered in 1882. In fabric printing the pattern was first watercolored, then transferred by a drawing to the block by means of tracing paper; but this had to be matched to the pattern for accuracy. All tracings were submitted to Morris before rubbing them onto a pearwood block to provide a guide for cutting. I saw Strawberry Thief hung on the walls of the Old Hall in Kelmscott Village. This chintz was designed by Morris, registered with the Patent Office in May 1883, and was printed at his Merton Abbey works. The coloring was obtained by the indigo-discharge process and surface printing with no less than twenty-four blocks.

Indian Diaper, Snakehead, Little Chintz and Pomegranate show Morris’ awareness of contemporary imported Indian textiles. Morris believed that to obtain good designs there could be no compromise. The artist 1) should have a general feeling for art; 2) he must be a good colorist; 3) he must be able to draw well; 4) he must know how to stitch the work the design is to be produced in.

William Morris restored status and self respect to the textile designer, printer and weaver. With the values of simplicity, honesty and sincerity, Morris meant we are to share our art talents. Vine and Pomegranate designed by Kate Faulkner in 1877 is a good example of how Morris considered women equal to men in their abilities. By the nineteenth century, canvas work had largely become an essential accomplishment for upper class ladies. The Industrial Revolution and machine-made textiles removed the utilitarian role from embroidery.

The revival of canvas embroidery in the 1960’s inevitably means that its social context is different from that of the past and that its function had changed. Canvas embroidery can perhaps now be divided into two directions. There are those who choose to regard it as a traditional craft and pursue it as a satisfying hobby. Others wish to bring it into the realm of contemporary innovation and experimental art with much less emphasis on embroidery techniques and more on the interpretation of form, the relationships of colors and the introduction of other materials.

Morris can be proclaimed the greatest pattern designer of all times. Morris’ work is breathtakingly beautiful. His designs show an obsession with perfection. Morris is one of those men whom history will never overtake.