Illustration: Frederick Etchells. Rug design, 1913.
The English artist, architect and writer Frederick Etchells is probably best known for his association with Roger Fry and the Omega Workshops project, as well as his translation of Le Corbusier's seminal works on modern architecture into English. While the two may at first not automatically seem to be related, the Omega Workshops and Le Corbusier were important elements in the founding of the intrinsic style of art, architecture and design, and the direction that that style would take over much of the twentieth century.
Etchells himself became involved in the Omega Workshops project through his personal friendship with Roger Fry. Etchells produced the rug design shown here for the Omega Workshops in 1913. The design itself immediately shows the designers architectural credentials and training. While the composition is somewhat different to work produced by various Omega artists and designers in other mediums, particularly that of ceramics, furniture and textiles, much of the rug design work produced by the Workshops through various artists and designers such as Duncan Grant, Roald Kristian, Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry himself, closely follows a particular style with compositions following and interpreting the shape of the rug. Therefore, as in the case of Etchells, the rug dimensions are used as a guide for the rest of the composition. This led inevitably to a number of pieces, though by no means all, using hard edged verticals and horizontals. It is interesting to note that Etchells himself in this particular rug design overlaid the emphasis of the grid with a series of diamonds at deliberate odds with the vertical and horizontal background emphasis of the rug.
Unfortunately, there is little evidence for a colour photo of Etchells rug design and so we are therefore left with only a contemporary black and white version and can only guess at its true dimensions colour wise.
By the beginning of the 1920s, Etchells had decided to leave art and design behind him and concentrate full time on architectural pursuits. However, the small part of his career that he dedicated to his friend Roger Fry and his experimental Omega Workshops project, gives us an insight as to the dynamism that was becoming such an important element of the English decorative arts scene just on the eve of the First World War.
It is often thought and indeed regularly portrayed, that England in the last years before the war was one of an endless elegant Edwardian late summer. However, it is much more realistic to see, at least in the world of art, design and craft, that England during this period, rather than asleep, was a culture that was exploring a whole range of often imported ideas and theories that was to irrevocably change both the arts and society in such a fundamental way that the First World War in some respects, was the catalyst that was to put these ideas and theories into practise. England in the years following the war was to be a very different one than that in which Etchells designed this rug.
Further reading links:
Towards a New Architecture. Translated from the French by Frederick Etchells.
The City of Tomorrow and It's Planning. Translated from the 8th French Edition of Urbanisme with an Introduction by Frederick Etchells
Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of The Omega Workshops
The Omega Workshops
Omega Workshops, 1913-19
The Omega Workshops: Alliance and enmity in English art, 1911-1920 : Anthony d'Offay Gallery
Omega Cuts: Woodcuts and Linocuts by Artists Associated with the Omega Workshops and the Hogarth Press
Omega Workshops
The Omega Workshops: Alliance and Enmity in English Art, 1911-1920
A Roger Fry Reader
Art Deco and Modernist Carpets
