Illustration: Paul Burck. Wallpaper design, c1901.
The German artist and designer Paul Burck produced work in a whole range of disciplines from fine art through to illustration, graphics, wallpaper, glass, ceramics, jewellery, rug and tapestry design. Much of his earlier work was inspired by nature and therefore was incorporated relatively easily into the general Art Nouveau movement. Later in his career he moved more towards a cleaner, minimal abstract phase leaving behind the more obvious connection with the natural world. However, much of his memorable work produced during the period that marked the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century is definitely nature based, although he was not always as literal as some.
The four wallpaper designs produced by Burck in about 1901 show a good example of his personal interpretation of nature through pattern. Although certainly arranged formally, with an obvious and closely contained repeat, Burck's pattern work cannot be said to be merely a form of industrial stamping, producing work that has no real connection with a more subtle creative approach. There is a natural elegance to the pattern work. Burck weaves with elements that seem aligned almost with a form of hand-produced calligraphy. These flowing lines connect the pattern work together, but as a filigreed framework, rather than one that is heavy and seemingly imposed by a form of industrial process.
Illustration: Paul Burck. Wallpaper design, c1901.
In some respects, Burck's elegant line work pays a certain homage to the prevailing Art Nouveau movement in which these four wallpaper designs would have been seen as certainly being part of. However, as with any decorative movement there is always room for a certain element of individual expression and Burck's pattern work takes Art Nouveau and plays and twists the parameters of the expected. The pattern work certainly derives its initial inspiration from the natural world, but whereas Art Nouveau work of the period often seemed languid and slow of movement, Burck's work seems by comparison playful and certainly the lines throughout the pattern work move with a certain element of vigour rather than necessarily languid.
Illustration: Paul Burck. Wallpaper design, c1901.
In Burck's work in other disciplines during this period, his debt to nature is perhaps a little more obvious and certainly has more freedom. His tapestry work for example (The Tapestry Work of Paul Burck and Tapestry Work of Paul Burck) is much more aligned with fine art, but to be fair by the time that he was producing tapestry work the discipline itself had moved from one of a natural affinity to design and decoration to that of one that felt itself part of the fine art world. His rug design work (Rug Designs of Paul Burck) also from this period, is creatively free to an extent, but does seem obviously constrained by the physical parameters of the discipline, as in a rectangular rug format with border. In this light his wallpaper work treads the line between creative inspiration and the limits of both the discipline itself as well as the company that produced the product which would also have had its constraints.
Illustration: Paul Burck. Wallpaper design, c1901.
It is interesting to note how many creative individuals, both fine art and design based, were involved at some point in their careers with the wallpaper industry. Although often seen as part of their earlier creative life when perhaps commissions and careers were not as readily available as they would have liked, it still gives an interesting insight into the developing creative life of a number of leading artists, architects and designers. Many of the specific magazines and journals of the period that dealt with interiors and the larger applied and decorative arts world, covered wallpaper design work as readily as they would any other discipline, including architecture. During the latter part of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth the wallpaper industry was still relatively large and powerful and could therefore often take their choice of the creative pool of talent that was available, from established and familiar names to the young and often more flexible and creatively contemporary minded.
It is perhaps just as well to bear in mind that Burck produced these wallpaper designs when he was still in his very early twenties. The work is elegantly confident, dynamic and full of promise as any newly creative career should be.
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