![]() He felt that his larger patterns worked well in smaller rooms, but this went against the prevailing view of Victorian tastemakers, including Oscar Wilde, who apparently disliked Morris's work. Certainly many of Morris's later patterns – notably 'Acanthus' and 'St James's' – are on a grand scale. Writing in the Journal of Decorative Arts in 1892, a commentator said that Morris's "…patterns are palatial in scale, and whilst their colouring is very beautiful and soft, the magnitude of the designs exclude them from ordinary work". © Victoria and Albert Museum, Londonĭespite the enthusiasm of artistic and aristocratic circles, Morris's papers were never universally admired as decorations for the ordinary home. © Victoria and Albert Museum, Londonīalmoral wallpaper, designed by William Morris, printed by Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd., 1887, England. St James's wallpaper, designed by William Morris, manufactured by Jeffrey & Co., 1881, England. These commissions no doubt boosted the commercial success of Morris's papers, as well as helping secure his reputation: by 1884 'Morrisonian' had become a known term in the interiors trade – and wallpaper design was no longer an anonymous art. Then in 1887 Queen Victoria commissioned Morris & Company to create a special wallpaper design for Balmoral Castle with the 'VRI' cipher incorporated into it. Carrying a suitably lavish pattern, this design required 68 separate printing blocks to create a repeat over two wallpaper widths, and had a vertical repeat of 127cm. James's Palace, a job for which he created a special wallpaper: ' St. In 1880 Morris was asked to redecorate rooms at London's St. Larkspur wallpaper, designed by William Morris, manufactured by Jeffrey & Co., 1874, England. As a result they gradually began to be found in the newly built homes of the 'artistic' middle classes. Morris papers began to be recommended in many domestic advice manuals and design books, including the affordable Art at Home series (1876–83). They all required a complex printing technique that involved a large number of individual printing blocks, making the resulting papers more costly than those that carried Morris's earlier, simpler designs. These patterns all demonstrate exuberant scrolling foliage, a degree of three-dimensionality, and a closely interwoven foreground and background. It was in the 1870s that Morris really mastered designing for wallpaper, a period during which he created many of his most enduring designs, such as ' Larkspur' (1872), ' Jasmine' (1872), 'Willow' (1874), ' Marigold' (1875), ' Wreath' and ' Chrysanthemum' (both 1876–87).
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