Illustration: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Diaper wallpaper design, 1849.
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was not only a prodigious architect, decorator and designer, he was also acutely aware of the limitations that could so easily be found in most avenues of decorative design in mid-nineteenth century Britain. He was a sometimes voracious and public critic of British architecture, design and education which he often saw as woefully inadequate and lacking any vision, particularly for the contemporary world of the mid-nineteenth century.
Pugin produced decorative pattern work in a number of disciplines including ceramics, textiles and wallpaper. The wallpaper design that illustrates this article was produced by him for Crace & Son in 1849. It is a diaper motif that was to be repeated regularly across a background. The design itself has been simplified to such an extent that it appears almost as if a singular stencil. All the heightened observational reality that was often such a part of wallpaper design during this period was removed; in many respects, it could be seen as being literally stripped away, in order to produce a contemporary piece of design work. The word contemporary is not always a moniker that is often attributed to Pugin, who to many was seen at the time as an interesting architect and designer with a somewhat nostalgic, some would even have said delusional preference for the medieval. To some extent, this is still somewhat true today although Pugin is usually encased in early Victorian modernism as seen through the filter of the Gothic Revival, a somewhat unhappy and ill-fitting analogy.
Nature was at the heart of Pugin's design and decoration strategy and although it is a little too far to see him as an originator of the English Arts & Crafts movement, he was an early influence on many of the pioneers of the movement. his acceptance of the natural world as the starting point, even foundation of decoration, ornament and pattern was a particular influence on the early movement. Interestingly Pugin pioneered the notion that the linkage between the medieval use of the natural world as a decorative inspiration, and that of the contemporary mid-nineteenth century industrial world, was not an impractical romantic illusion or even a strange scholarly obsession. It was often spoken of by Pugin in practical and every day technical language as being a necessity of any aspect of good design and decoration within any discipline, from architecture to textiles.
He was often publicly minded concerning his interest and genuine belief in the power that the natural world held over the purpose and influence of decoration, ornament and pattern. In an 1845 letter that he wrote to The Builder magazine, he was hopeful that a contemporary Britain would see 'men imbued with a thorough knowledge of the history, wants, climate, and customs of our country; who would combine all the spirit of the medieval architects and the beauties of the old Christian artists, with the practical improvements of our times.' He hoped that this essential and elemental approach, which would have seen a fundamental change in British attitudes towards design and decoration, would start a movement that would become '...a true expression of our period.'
In the same letter, Pugin went on to claim that he had '...long entertained a most sanguine hope that Christian art and architecture may be carried to a far higher degree of perfection than they ever attained during the middle ages. The real source of art is nature, and the best artists of every nation and period have taken it as their standard, and represented it under the peculiar aspect of their locality and period.' Certainly, in this particular aspect Pugin was hopeful on seeing indigenous contemporary architecture, design and decoration that was aimed and adapted for local populations. It was this idea of both localised and community based responsibility, as far as decoration and craft skills were concerned, that was a central belief of most, if not all of the various incarnations of the Arts & Crafts movement that were formed across Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries.
Pugin wrote for the contemporary world in which he lived, and not for that of an individual who wanted to escape from that world. Despite the fact that a number of critics both admired and mocked Pugin in equal measure, his notions did last the test of time, certainly, as far as the nineteenth century were concerned. Henry Cole for example in his personal magazine vehicle The Journal of Design and Manufactures, both praised Pugin for his notion of reusing some of the foundation elements of the medieval world in a modern context, but also saw his affiliation with the Catholic Church as a 'retreat to the past'.
Pugin, in many respects would not have necessarily recognised Cole's description of himself. However, as there was a particular enmity of sorts between the two men, Pugin being an early and consistent critic of Cole's strategy concerning the national Schools of Design, Cole's critical remarks aimed at Pugin were perhaps not as objective as they could have been.
It is perhaps as well to remember that Pugin was seen as a complex character, even in the mid-nineteenth century. He was characterised as both a romantic nostalgic individual, as well as a practical contemporary designer and architect. His decorative work should perhaps be seen as part of the early aspects of the design reform movement of which, interestingly both he and Cole were impassioned members. Pugin saw a great potential in the contemporary decorative direction in which he hoped that Britain was pointed. If Pugin had not died at the ridiculously early age of forty in 1852, the dynamics of the British decorative arts in the latter half of the nineteenth century might well have been very different including that of the rise of both William Morris and the English Arts & Crafts movement.
Further reading links:
A. W. N. Pugin: Master of Gothic Revival
The Stained Glass of A.W.N. Pugin
The Collected Letters of A. W. N. Pugin: Volume I: 1830-1842
The Collected Letters of A. W. N. Pugin: Volume 2: 1843-1845
The Collected Letters of A. W. N. Pugin: Volume 3: 1846-1848
The Collected Letters of A. W. N. Pugin: Volume 4: 1849-1850
A.W.N. Pugin: An Annotated Critical Bibliography
A.W.N. Pugin and the Pugin Family (Catalogues of Architectural Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum)
Contrasts and True Principles
The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture
Pugin: A Gothic Passion
Victorian Gothic House Style: An Architectural and Interior Design Source Book for Home Owners
A History Of The Gothic Revival
The Gothic Revival (World of Art)
Gothic Revival A&I (Art and Ideas)
Gothic Revival
Victorian and Edwardian Furniture and Interiors: From the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau
