Illustration: Walter Crane. Alcestic Frieze, 1876.
Walter Crane was a prodigious and prestigious artist, designer and illustrator. He produced design work for textiles, carpet, ceramics, stained glass and wallpaper. To give some impression as to the longevity and profuseness of his design work, this article is illustrated with four wallpaper designs produced by him, one for each decade covering a period from the 1870s to the first decade of the twentieth century.
Crane's consistent output over a period of six decades from the 1860s to the 1910s gives some impression as to his popularity with the general public, as well as his phenomenal dedication and enthusiasm for the decorative arts especially as seen through the Arts & Crafts movement.
Illustration: Walter Crane. Wood Notes, 1886.
Much of Crane's wallpaper output was produced through the English wallpaper producer Jeffrey & Co. This company had links with various artists and designers of the Arts and Crafts movement, but also with many who felt no immediate allegiance to the movement. Jeffrey & Co could call on the likes of A F Vigers, A H Mackmurdo, B J Talbert, C F A Voysey, W T Neatby, Owen Jones and Crane himself. Most were happy to oblige the company as Jeffrey & Co had made strenuous efforts in a contemporary commercial world that was largely concerned with profits and lots of them, to produce wallpaper design work that was not only of a high decorative standard, but one that made strenuous efforts to ensure that the finished product was as close to the initial designers specifications as was possible. This was unfortunately a rarity and much decorative work produced during the nineteenth century was often only a pale imitation of the original decorative intention of the designer.
Illustration: Walter Crane. Artichoke, 1895.
Crane's decorative wallpaper work over the four decades up to the beginning of the twentieth century is an interesting example of English decorative style and the singular path it led between English tastes and appeal and that of the continuing innovation, experimentation and indeed restlessness of decorative tastes and styles on the Continent. A number of European decorative styles did succeed in sweeping over the Channel during the nineteenth century, though much of it seemed, at least on the surface, to have made little if any impact on the work of a number of the key figures of English design of the period.
Illustration: Walter Crane. The Formal Garden, 1904.
Much of this peculiar insularity can be explained by the natural cultural aloofness of island people and the distinct distrustfulness of outsiders. To some extent the English determination to pursue the set course of the Arts & Crafts movement, revelling in the distinctiveness of English decorative work helps to explain this cultural phenomenon and some of this can be seen in Crane's examples shown in this article. The two illustrations from the 1880s and 1890s, although showing certain elements of European Art Nouveau tendencies, are still very much rooted within the William Morris school of decoration. Having said that, it is also interesting to note that the last illustration from 1904, while still observationally and formally English, does show a definite inclination towards the European decorative ideas of the 1910s that were to flourish and expand after the First World War to become the early French Art Deco, a style that was to come to dominate European decorative interiors over a two decade period. As an aside, it would have been interesting to see how this exceptionally talented and diverse artist and designer, would have evolved and developed during the 1920s if he had not died in 1915.
Illustration: Walter Crane, 1886.
This last illustration is also of interest if you notice the regular daisy clumps that pepper the background of the design. These actually hark back to a wallpaper design produced by Crane in 1876. However, they can be traced back further still to an early design of William Morris that was originally produced in 1864 and was to be found on both printed textile and wallpaper. Nothing is ever wasted or discarded in the career of a decorative designer, nor should it be.
Further reading links:The Art & Illustration of Walter Crane
Line & form
An Artist's Reminiscences
The Bases of Design Walter Crane
Walter Crane, 1845-1915: Artist, Designer and Socialist
Walter Crane: The Arts and Crafts, Painting, and Politics (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art)
Illustrations and Ornamentation from The Faerie Queene (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Flora's Feast: A Fairy's Festival of Flowers
Walter Crane as a Book Illustrator
An Alphabet of Old Friends ; And, the Absurd ABC
Walter Crane
Art and the Formation of Taste: Six Lectures by Lucy Crane; With Illustrations Drawn by Thomas and Walter Crane (1882 )
Decorative Illustration of Books
Moot Points: Friendly Disputes On Art & Industry Between Walter Crane & Lewis F. Day
The art of Walter Crane
