William Morris and Brother Rabbit

Illustration: William Morris. Brother Rabbit textile design, 1882.

William Morris textile design Brother Rabbit was designed in 1881, although not released commercially until the following year at his new Merton Abbey works. It was released in a number of colourways including red, green and the above blue. It was also released in wallpaper format and has become a firm favourite of the more stylised approach taken by Morris in some of his 1880s designs such as St James, Strawberry Thief, Granada and Ispahan.

What Brother Rabbit has in common with the other designs mentioned, is both the surprising formality of Morris, but also the larger European influence, which seemed to grow stronger as Morris career developed and as his experience of styles and decorative eras outside of England, became apparent.

To be fair Morris work always had as its inspiration the broader medieval sphere of northern Europe of which England was a component part. Morris was very familiar with a range of textile based work that had been produced in Northern France as well as Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany across generations during the medieval and renaissance periods. However, although he was interested in and understood to a certain extent the medieval and renaissance periods south of the Alps, they did not appear as obviously in his textile work as that of Northern Europe. However, in an increasing number of textile design pieces from the late 1870s onwards, the influence of Italy in particular, became much more apparent.

Morris constantly studied textiles amongst other artefacts that had been collected at the South Kensington Museum, the future Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Although largely European in context, at least in the early collections of the museum, because of its position within the British Empire there was also a considerable and relatively wide-ranging collection of Indian origin which Morris was to use as a comprehensive influence, particularly in his carpet design work. In the context of Brother Rabbit he became genuinely entranced with the sophisticated silk work of Italy, but not necessarily from one period in particular and certainly not contained within his old medieval standard. For example, Brother Rabbit is said to be derived from a seventeenth century Italian design, long after any time period in which Morris is usually associated. However, many of these designs featuring opposing and paired animals both existing and imaginative, have a long history that flows back to the Islamic expansion when Islamic armies and populations were a regular feature of Sicily and Southern Italy and the museum was voraciously collecting specimens from al these time periods and geographical locations. Of course, with most pattern work, design details can always be traced back much further that at first assumed. The type of symmetrically opposing figurative decoration that was used so successfully by Morris, can be traced back through the initial Islamic influence, to Byzantium, ancient Persia and through that culture to the work produced in Assyria, Babylonia and beyond.

Although much of the work that inspired Morris had originally been woven, he decided to reproduce the textile work by using the discharge dyeing technique, which is basically produced by dyeing a fabric and then removing some of the dye by printing with bleach by overlaying a specific pattern onto the fabric. It is a technique that Morris perfected over time and was used to good effect, although some of these design pieces were also traditionally block printed. In some respects the wallpaper pattern work that used Brother Rabbit and other designs in this style, made much less sense than the reworking of woven pattern work to printed. However, Morris who always preferred fabric covered walls rather than wallpaper, whether that be tapestry or panels of woven fabric, could be justified in trying to give the appearance of sumptuous seventeenth century fabrics or even incrementally earlier periods, to a later nineteenth century domestic home. That it probably was not particularly effective, although conceivably profitable, must have sat uncomfortably with Morris.

It is interesting to note that even though Morris produced increasingly more work in this symmetrical mode, his compositions did not become correspondingly simpler in appearance. His pattern work was as convoluted and overlaid as his previous more organic styles. Nature still seemed to be at the heart of his work, no matter where the influence originated. It could be said that although Brother Rabbit might well have been inspired by Italy in the seventeenth century, much of the work was still produced by an Englishman in love with his very English garden and all that that entailed. Having said that, the title Brother Rabbit is said to have derived from across the Atlantic, with the American Uncle Remus stories of Brer Rabbit, which were said to have been a favourite amongst Morris and his family.

Further reading links:
William Morris Full-Color Patterns and Designs (Dover Pictorial Archives)
William Morris: Patterns & Designs (International Design Library)
Designs of William Morris (Phaidon Miniature Editions)
William Morris
William Morris (Temporis)
William Morris on Art and Socialism
The Beauty of Life: William Morris and the Art of Design
William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Home
The Essential William Morris Anthology (12 books) [Illustrated]
William Morris and Morris & Co.
V&A Pattern: William Morris: (Hardcover with CD)
William Morris
William Morris Designs CD-ROM and Book (Full-Color Electronic Design Series)
William Morris Decor and Design
William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary (Spectre)
The Gardens of William Morris

Tile Work of William Morris

Illustration: William Morris. Earthenware ceramic tile design, 1870s.

William Morris produced a number of ceramic tile designs throughout his career. Admittedly not as popular or as widely known as some of the other disciplines catered for by Morris & Co, namely textiles and wallpaper, they are still part of the library of work produced during the latter half of the nineteenth century by Morris and his collaborators.

The two sets of tile designs shown in this article were produced in the 1870s and consist of two tiles each, which in turn go to make up a male and female figure. They are perhaps a little disappointing in character and certainly in composition. Compared to the work being produced by such individuals as William de Morgan and Philip Webb, as well as the established English companies of Minton and Maw & Co, it seems surprising how seemingly ineffectual the tile work is. Even some of the ceramic tile work produced by Morris & Co during the 1870s, particularly those designed by Philip Webb, at least some of which stands out as interesting and original tile work on a par with the first phases of English tile work produced during the 1840s.

It seems as though tile work was not really Morris' forte and he seems to have struggled to find a clear definition of what ceramic tile work truly was. To be fair, there is no clear evidence that Morris produced the decorative effects on these two sets of tiles although they do look naive enough to have been produced by him. However, even though he may well have not been directly involved with their creation, he was in charge of their marketing and promotion, as all aspects of Morris & Co were kept under a tight leash by Morris himself. Therefore, he would have been well aware as to how these pieces looked as finished products which makes it all the more surprising how mediocre they appear when contrasted with the greater bulk of English tile work produced during this period. A period which was seeing a particular creative high point, one that it would probably never reach again, at least not on the scale seen during this particular era.

Illustration: William Morris. Earthenware ceramic tile design, 1870s

Ceramic tile work is a particular and original discipline that needs a specific and individual creative approach. This is not to say that it is impossible for artists and designers to be able to span more than one discipline and indeed a number have produced very effective and arresting tile design work. However, if the discipline is not approached at least with a modicum of sympathy and understanding, then the results can be both lacklustre and even confusing. The fact that these two Morris designs appear as compositions out of place with the practical discipline that should have been vigorously involved, perhaps says much about the initial intention of the project in the first place. That these figures look as if they have been taken directly from a painting or tapestry design and then placed on a ceramic background, adds to their ineffectual appearance.

What is perhaps more surprising is Morris continual and practical approach throughout his career, to the tenet that honesty to materials and sympathy with the craft discipline being used, was ultimately one of the most important aspects entailed in creative work. That he should have seemingly wavered from this practical mantra is confusing. However, it is perhaps important to make personal judgements concerning the entire work of a creative career and not just those that proved most popular or enduring, as the whole panoply of work gives a much better insight to the individual than the seemingly obvious successes.

It is perhaps unsurprising that these particular Morris designs seem largely forgotten compared to his other ceramic tile work. This is not to say that this type of decorative work was not popular during the latter half of the nineteenth century, it was. However, this type of work added little to the genre and compared to the wide-scaling creatively flexible work produced by William de Morgan for example, this particular phase of Morris decorative output is probably best left undiscovered.

Further reading links:
William Morris Full-Color Patterns and Designs (Dover Pictorial Archives)
William Morris: Patterns & Designs (International Design Library)
Designs of William Morris (Phaidon Miniature Editions)
William Morris (Temporis)
William Morris
William Morris on Art and Socialism
The Beauty of Life: William Morris and the Art of Design
V&A Pattern: William Morris: (Hardcover with CD)
The Essential William Morris Anthology (12 books) [Illustrated]
William Morris and Morris & Co.
William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Home
William Morris
William Morris Decor and Design
The Gardens of William Morris
William Morris Designs CD-ROM and Book (Full-Color Electronic Design Series)
William Morris Giftwrap Paper (Giftwrap--4 Sheets, 4 Designs)