Design for Walls

George Irving

An impression of a trellis paper designed by Edward Bawden. Clear yellow background with reddish brown design. The paper has been used on one wall only, the other walls are papered in plain yellow.

We should not have to waste many words in proving that wallpaper is the must universal, as it is the most democratic, of the applied arts. When properly used and of good design, wallpaper can create space, proportion, colour and background in the most humble room. ‘The walls’, as William Morris said, ‘make your house and home, and if you do not make some sacrifices in their favour you will find your rooms have a kind of makeshift lodging-house look about them; however rich and handsome your movables may be.’ We could add to Morris's remarks and say that even the inexpensive, not very well-designed furniture that most of us have to put up with is enhanced by setting it against a good wallpaper.

For a long time most people have been prejudiced against any but ‘cream’ and plain drab-coloured walls; for the reason, of course, that cream is safe —it does at any rate prevent comment. So it is heartening to notice in the shop windows papers of good quality, colour, and pleasing, if somewhat conventional, design.

The manufacturers, at all events, are doing their part. They are making wallpapers of excellent design and employing artists of the first rank to create them. Edward Bawden, Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant are some of the names that come to mind. Besides contemporary page break page 89

A contemporary wallpaper in vertical stripes which was chosen to balance the horizontal lines of the furniture and give height to the room.

“The Daisy”, 1862, the first Morris paper sold. The colours are yellow, scarlet, green and white on a pale buff ground.

designs, manufacturers are selecting and reproducing fine eighteenth and nineteenth century papers. William Morris's ‘Daisies’, ‘Pomegranates and Birds’, for example, are as fresh and graceful as the day they were first printed.

Manufacturers, of course, cater for every level of taste, and importers have to do the same. If we want good wallpapers we have to ask for them, since it is impossible for any merchant to do more than make a tentative guess at what the capricious demands of his customers will be. So far importers have been in advance of the public, which, it seems, can be separated into three classes: the few who know exactly what they want; the larger group which merely knows what it doesn't like; and the majority which has no opinions and no ideas about the matter at all. It would be an interesting experiment to subject a couple of dozen first-rate wallpaper designs to the casual inspection of the ordinary buying public. The comments would not be difficult to predict.

To create a demand for everyday things of high artistic merit is a ticklish business. The merchant is faced with the dilemma either of showing his customers page 90

A reconstruction of the oldest European wallpaper known. It decorated the Lodge at Christ's College, Cambridge, and was placed there in 1509. It resembles tooled leather or brocade.

Detail from a Chinese wallpaper, much reduced. The drawing is lively and accurate and typical of the ‘bird, insect and tree’ design. The colours are soft and delicate.

good design which, because it is unusual, will most likely frighten them off, or of displaying unexceptionable goods which he knows will at least not offend them. A glance at the wallpapers in most shop windows will show that a very adequate compromise has been reached. But let us hope that someone will sometimes order, just for luck, a few really exciting and handsome designs by Bawden or Sutherland or even Morris.

Manufacturers have not always been in this dilemma. The long and (for the most part) honourable record of wallpaper demonstrates that fine design and craftsmanship were, until about 1840, the rule and not the exception.

The history of wallpaper makes a fascinating social study, for it provides a remarkably clear and continuous picture of the way people have lived, of their pretensions, their taste and their manners. The earliest English wallpaper that has been found dates from about 1500. These early papers were hand painted; they were nailed — not pasted — to the wall, and they were given to the paperhanger in very small pieces. Later on the small pieces were joined together and delivered in rolls; joins were made less noticeable by overprinting. By 1700 printing from wood blocks was general, but paper was still scarce — old deeds, letterpress, parchments were all pressed into service. As paper supplies improved and printing technique developed, wallpaper became cheaper. By the second half of the eighteenth century there were great demands for English wallpaper from America and France. English wallpaper was superior then, as it is again today, to all others in design and technique.

Machine printing revolutionized the wallpaper trade, and from 1840 until well into the twentieth century the story of wallpaper declines into the dreary recital we are all so familiar with. Cheap and tawdry papers began to flood the market. They were designed without any idea of the true purpose and object of wall decoration. It was William Morris who showed the way to better things, and to him goes much of the credit for the better work of the nineteenth century.

Today papers are comparatively cheap to buy, and they are, without doubt, the best of all wall coverings. They are produced with the highest technical skill, and many of them, as we have seen, are designed by first-rate artists. Supplies are there. It is for us to demand them.

Dado, filling, frieze and border. Machine-printed in 1892.

An early floral English design, about 1760. The outline is engraved in black, the colours applied by brush.

A design for the Houses of Parliament by Pugin. It is severe and Gothic in character. This and Pugin's other papers are the foundation of modern development in wallpaper design. The colours are blue on a gold ground.