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

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Parry, Linda, ed. William Morris London : Philip Wilson in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1996. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 9 May-1 Sept. 1996, p.206. Verity Pugh examines William Morris's lifelong fascination with flowers: his inspirations, his garden, his designs and the hidden meanings behind the petals. William Morris can be understood as an early forerunner to the modern environmental movement. His keen sense for nature’s beauty and the ability of industrialisation to destabilise it, led him to the co-founding of one of the first conservation agencies, the Commons Preservation Society (today the Open Spaces Society), in 1865. Even in his own factories at Merton Abbey, he concerned himself with preserving the natural landscape. Opposing a private bill brought to parliament seeking permission to tap springs of the River Wandle (which fed the Merton Abbey factory) at its source, Morris wrote to the MP for Tower Hamlets “such a loss of a beautiful stream would grieve me more on public than on private grounds.” I have to concentrate, but a mistake can make the work unique and look more more handmade, so don't worry too much! Boost your children’s knowledge of William Morris with our fun and engaging KS2 (Ages 7-11) Wallpaper Video Lesson, featuring the following:

While always politically conscious, at 49 William Morris crossed ‘the river of fire’ and became a revolutionary socialist. Throughout his life he felt uneasy about the disparity between his comfortable lifestyle and the conditions endured by most of the British working classes. In the 1880s Morris began to take action, hoping to overthrow the system that enabled the rich to profit from the labour of others. He attended marches, wrote articles and lectured all over the country.HDK57 Quality bedding Subtle relaxing colours. Great quality, feels nice next to your skin. Washes well. 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. The William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, London. Based in Morris’s childhood home, this gallery is devoted to his life and works Pour half a litre of water into the tray and position the Growbar indoors on a warm, bright windowsill. The seeds will need to be a cosy 18-22’C to germinate.

In an era obsessed with decorum and propriety, it is perhaps not surprising that the Victorians liked the idea of subtle messages that could be given through flowers. Some of these associations - such as red roses with love or lilies with purity - are still familiar to us today. Even though Morris himself didn’t necessarily sign up to this way of thinking, many of his Victorian clients would have been well-versed in the supposed hidden meanings of flowers. This could have meant a very different take on some of his designs for some at the time.

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He particularly liked to use the indigenous plants that grew wild in the hedgerows and along the riverbanks of the English countryside. The Willow Boughpattern (1887) was based on drawings that he made of the willow trees growing near his country home, Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire – the elegantly intertwining branches and leaves in the design attesting to his abiding love of natural forms. The machine-printed papers are placed at the end of one of the books or in a msall book by themselves. /Parry, Linda, ed. William Morris London : Philip Wilson in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1996. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 9 May-1 Sept. 1996, pp.206-207, ill. 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. If the earth nourish us all alike, if the sun shines for all of us alike, if to one and all of us the glorious drama of the earth - day and night, summer and winter - can be presented as a thing to understand and love...” William Morris, Useful Work versus Useless Toil, 1885