This week we’re exploring the influence of Islamic art on the Victorian Arts and Crafts Movement. Our volunteer, Keith, gives an overview in this blog. Keith is usually found welcoming visitors to the De Morgan Gallery at Wightwick Manor.
Iznik ceramics were produced during the 15th to 17th Centuries during the height of the Ottoman Empire. The name of these ceramics was taken from the city on which production was centred. The innovative technique produced a bright white base that made the four traditional colours of turquoise, cobalt, malachite, and coral stand out under a thick transparent glaze. In addition to beautifully shaped ornamental jugs, vases, bowls and plates, tiles were produced in abundance to decorate the interiors of mosques and other important buildings with symmetrical designs of stylised flowers. The styled evolved and compositions became freer, more relaxed, naturalistic and experimental. As the Empire declined so did ceramic production and the technique was consigned to history. By that time, the influence of the Isnik work crossed the Bosphorus into the southern Mediterranean countries of Europe and beyond. Examples of the work had been preserved and displayed in museums.
Iznik Style Charger by William De Morgan and Cantagalli Pottery in Florence c. 1890
The Arts and Crafts movement, led by John Ruskin and William Morris became very popular from the mid-19th century onwards. The primary aim was to change the values of society, turning away from cheap and often poor-quality modern mass production and reviving the values of decorative art and crafts through paintings, sculptures, textiles, jewellery, furniture and metalwork.
After attending university, Morris had trained as an architect and subsequently set up a business designing and manufacturing wallpapers, tapestries, carpets, stained glass, and tiles. His success was guaranteed by his close collaboration with Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and other notable artists of the time. The Pre-Raphaelite Movement, to which they were closely aligned and of which Rosetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais were a founding members, became pre-eminent in the art world. Their influence is apparent in the vast array of objects retailed by Morris & Co., Liberty’s and others. Aside from his prolific output of paintings, Burne-Jones was also a designer of stained glass, tapestries and carpets for the company.
In 1882 Morris wrote “To us pattern designers Persia has become holy land, for there in process of time our art was perfected, and thence above all it spread to cover for a while the world, East and West.” Little wonder that his designs centred on the patterns of the exquisite Iznik work.
William Morris ‘Snakeshead’ Wallpaper design (1876)
A man who was to become the most important ceramic artist of the age, William De Morgan, met Morris in 1863 and the two became lifelong friends. De Morgan had trained as an artist, but could more readily be described as a, inventor, designer, and scientist. Initially he was a stained-glass designer and painter but became fascinated with the science behind the production of ceramics and devoted his life’s work to perfecting the technique behind the glazes. De Morgan’s growing ambitions led him to the establishment of his own pottery, where he became both designer, innovator, and manufacturer.
De Morgan’s was chosen by Lord Leighton for a commission to complete the decoration of an extension for his house in London, with Islamic and Damascene tiles brought back from his grand tour to the Middle East and Syria. In need of more tiles, he turned to De Morgan to manufacture modern copies. Those copies proved indistinguishable from the originals and so his reputation was established. Such grand displays became very fashionable amongst the upper classes, creating a large market.
‘Arab Hall’ extension to Leighton House, London (1877 – 1880)
De Morgan’s technique of applying the glazes to patterns carefully copied onto tracing paper resulted in a finished product that could be manufactured precisely and in sufficient quantity that allowed intricate patterns to be turned into pictures. His fertile imagination and sense of humour extended into his creating an extensive catalogue of unique plates, chargers, dishes, jugs and vases that depicted mythical creatures, fish, birds and other floral patterns, not only in the subtle colours of his predecessors, but also in a range of fiery reds on a white background and more muted golds and browns.
He always drew inspiration from the Islamic art he had seen by working on Leighton’s commission and in the collection of the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) which was a two minute walk from his home and he visited regularly.
The Arts and Crafts style of decoration remained popular beyond the turn of the century and into the early 1920’s.
