Design Review: Volume 3, Issue 4 (January-February 1951)
Design for Walls
Design for Walls
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.
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.
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.
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