How the Victorians Portrayed the Medieval World

 Illustration: Edward Burne-Jones. The Attainment tapestry design.

One of the most popular style projections of the Victorians, particularly in Britain, was that of the medieval. Although the Gothic Revivals main period was between about 1840 and 1870, re-enactments and reinterpretations were still proving popular with both artists and designers, as well as the general public, right up until the end of the century and indeed beyond.

How the Victorians visually interpreted the medieval world is an interesting one as it was often portrayed in textile formats, particularly within the medium of tapestry. Tapestry was seen by many of those fascinated with all things medieval, as being a craft that was steeped in the traditions of this early period and one that had a natural affinity to the era. Although many original medieval tapestries were often actually embroideries rather than woven tapestries, it mattered little to the average Victorian with their propensity to project their needs and wants onto past cultural periods, ignoring the areas that might well have troubled them and their interpretations. We do the same today and often reflect our own imaginings and concerns onto periods that would have had difficulty recognising our versions of their worlds.

Although the Victorian interpretation of the medieval was an obvious nineteenth century construct, it is often the same one that we ourselves popularly project on to that medieval world and sometimes for similar reasons. Many of us like to imagine living in a historical period, whether it be medieval, Elizabethan, Regency and so on. The premise is always that we would live in a large house and have a plentiful wardrobe of fine clothes. Most of us of course come from long generations of subsistence living peasantry and life for our ancestors was far from those imagined lifestyles. However, that is part of the fascination in projected interpretations of the past. They are no more real than our projections of the future, but they do allow us to daydream, fantasise and perhaps place ourselves, if only for a moment, beyond the normal and unimaginative constraints of contemporary everyday life, just as it did for the Victorian with their dreams of chivalry, romance and contented peasantry.

Illustration: Norwegian tapestry design, 12th century.

The Victorian practical reinterpretation of the medieval is even more interesting and can be seen through some of the examples shown in this article. There are two original medieval tapestry designs, which might well be embroidered, but can still be loosely classed as tapestries for this article, as they were classed as such in the nineteenth century. One is Norwegian and from the twelfth century, the other German and from the thirteenth century. Both show not only a lack of perspective, but more interestingly, a lack of interest in perspective. It is often a left over prejudice from the eighteenth century to infer that the medieval period forgot the classical ideals of proportion, perspective and realism, and had to resort to childlike interpretations of the world around them. Their work was often seen as crude and barbaric, and the decorative and artistic work of the period as one which cried out for the classical reawakening of the renaissance. However, for those living in the medieval world, as opposed to the eighteenth century, they would have seen the interpretation of the world on tapestry for example, as merely a stylised reflection of the world around them. It was never meant that it should be perceived as a duplicate, a copy of the real world, which they would have seen as a pointless exercise, which indeed it is.

Looking at the nineteenth century Edward Burne-Jones tapestry interpretation of the medieval world, it is interesting to note that the artist was prepared to use all of the classically derived tricks of proportion, perspective and realism to portray the world of the medieval, and none of the stylised reflections of the world as seen by the medieval creative mind. In many ways the Burne-Jones interpretation shows us how hard it was for generations of the post-renaissance period to throw away the tools of classicism no matter how hard they may have wanted to shift the emphasis away from the classical to the medieval world. Many Victorians were quite strident in their loathing of what they saw as the interruption of the creative pathway of art and decoration from the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth century. Many critics wished to see the nineteenth century equivalent of art and decoration as being interpreted as a continuation from the fifteenth century, leaving out the intervening classically dominated centuries, which were often seen by the English in particular as a cultural invasion from Europe that bore no affinity with the indigenous craft and decorative styles of England. That large sections of medieval creativity were also part of the on-going succession of cultural and creative invasions from Europe predictably passed them by.

Illustration: German tapestry design, 13th century.

At any rate, it is interesting to see that although the Victorians tried to re-connect with a medieval past, the intervening centuries were too wide a chasm to really bridge effectively and certainly creatively. The Victorian interpretation of the medieval world was exactly that, an interpretation. While the Gothic Revival certainly has merit as a creative movement, its projection of the medieval world was largely a false one whether culturally or creatively. Generations of classical indoctrination had led to an increasingly sterile creative world and the idea of any other viewpoint but the classical was one that was a hurdle too far for most, although to be fair, not all.

As far as the practical interpretation of the medieval world was concerned, it wasn't until the dawn of the twentieth century that the classical ideals of proportion, perspective and realism could start to be truly abandoned on a large scale or at least uncoupled from the creative world. It could be said that with the introduction of various new perspectives in the world of fine art a reconnection with the practical medieval reflection of the world, could at last be attempted.

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The Victorian Observation of Indian Decoration

Illustration: Decoration from an Indian lacquer workbox, seen at the Great Exhibition, 1851.

British designers, and particularly those involved in the textile industry, had been either literally copying or producing Anglicised versions of Indian pattern work for generations. Although it was relatively standard practice to produce Indian inspired textile pattern work, it was perhaps not until the nineteenth century that the British began to develop an interest in the reasoning behind, both the popularity and the obvious superiority of Indian decorative pattern.

As the discipline of science procured for itself a veneer of respectability and, to a certain extent at least, a relatively unbiased analysis of a whole range of subjects, the world of the decorative arts, particularly from an historical perspective, was bound to eventually become included in nineteenth century scientific analysis.

A number of individuals tried to make sense of an often bewildering entanglement of decorative pathways. These pathways joined most, if not all of human cultural diversity, into a confusing network of symbols, styles and creative eras. Much of the early nineteenth century information tended to rely on a typically Eurocentric approach to decoration, with most of the decorative eras of Europe either spontaneously appearing fully grown, or lending themselves to cultures outside of the continent. Therefore, European architecture, design and decoration often found itself being put forward as the influencer of what was deemed to be lesser cultures on the periphery of Europe. The fact that often the opposite was true, took some time to percolate within the European consciousness, and to be honest there are still many in Europe who believe in the Eurocentric perspective of events, whether historical, political, religious, or indeed decorative.

Illustration: Indian ivory inlay decoration, seen at the Great Exhibition, 1851.

That Europe and particularly Britain had much to learn from the perspective of design and decoration began to be consistently put forward by a number of critics, some of whom had practical experience in the decorative arts and some who didn't. Criticism of contemporary British decorative arts output gained pace during the 1840s, but it was perhaps the event of the 1851 Great Exhibition in London which really made a convenient public forum in which to discuss British decorative arts as compared to the rest of Europe. However, considering the international aspect of the Exhibition, more particularly to those cultures outside of Europe, many of which were considered little more than colonial appendages of Britain, the discussion and analysis could be expanded beyond Europe.

India was particularly highlighted by critics during and after the Exhibition. For many it was the first time that they had seen Indian products in such detail and on such a scale. Of course, when talking of 'India' we have to be aware that as far as the British were concerned when they referred to India, they were talking of their influence over what is now Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. This also meant that decorative work displayed would be both Hindu and Muslim based and in that respect a cultural range of Indian work would have been seen. However, it is also true that much of the accumulated work shown at the Exhibition under the banner of India had been supplied by the British East India Company as well as by individuals and therefore as the old Mughal Empire was their particular power base much of the decorative display work had a Mughal and therefore Muslim heritage.

Illustration: Decoration from an Indian lacquer workbox, seen at the Great Exhibition, 1851.

Britain had always had, and to some extent still does have, a fairly peculiar relationship with India. Although there is a certain amount of complexity in the relationship which spans a number of generations, there is something to be said for the idea that Britain in its struggle to deal with its own inferiority when seen against the seemingly unchanging and age-old Hindu cultural traditions, or the rich cultural world of the Islamic Mughal Court, found a way of coping with its own inferiority by adopting a form of projected superiority. Many in the Mughal Court in particular saw much of the British blunt acts of perceived superiority as regrettable and painful to watch, and there are lots of amusing stories of Mughal Emperors inviting the British to their Court hoping that the civilised nature of the atmosphere might well help to educate the British in refining their nature.

As to decoration, the analysis of individuals such as Owen Jones helped to formulate, not so much why Indian decorative work was so successful and popular, although this was an important part of the understanding of India and its decorative history, but more a case of why it was consistently of such a high standard and why it seemed to work on so many levels and in so many disciplines without fail. The practical and technical analysis of Indian decoration shows clearly that much of it consists of pattern work that is devoid of illusion. This means in fact that Indian decorative detailing whether for architecture, glass, ceramics, wood, metal or indeed textiles lacks shadow or any element of depth. This was shown to be diametrically opposite to much of European decorative work of the last three or four hundred years.

Illustration: Inlay decoration of an Indian hookah, seen at the Great Exhibition, 1851.

Richard Redgrave in his supplementary report to the Great Exhibition, produced in the following year 1852 stated that Indian:

'...ornament is always flat and without shadow; natural flowers are never used imitatively, or perspectively, but are conventionalised by being displayed flat and according to a symmetrical arrangement; and all other objects, even animals and birds, when used as ornament, are reduced to their simplest flat form.'

Redgrave was not merely casually observing the main aspects that made up Indian decorative pattern work, he was in fact trying to underline why he and others felt that this form of decoration was infinitely superior to anything produced by Europe in the last four hundred years and certainly that of contemporary Britain. It was felt that Indian designers and decorators, rather than suffering from a lack of knowledge of perspective or a three-dimensional viewpoint in art, had instead a superior knowledge and skills base as far as art and design were concerned, specifically because they did not use perspective and illusion. They had an intrinsic and long-term understanding of materials and surfaces, which included their decorative strengths and weaknesses, a technical and practical ability that Britain had lost sometime in the early renaissance. That it was needed for the British to rediscover this innate ability through the Indian decorative arts, was seen as paramount to a successful domination of decoration both in Europe and internationally.

Illustration: Indian cashmere covering, seen at the Great Exhibition, 1851.

Not all were convinced that Indian decoration could help point the way for contemporary British design, and certainly many had difficulty with the concept of Indian decorative arts being seen as superior to that of the British. Many of the British who resided in India itself were prone to see anything Indian as inferior to the British way of life, but as already stated there is always the potential to start believing in your own superiority when it is stressed enough times. That that superiority was inherently self-delusional, and a delusion that was purposely projected as an overall confidence on to those who were being ruled, is an aspect of the British Empire that is only now beginning to surface.

More damning perhaps is the attitude of critics such as Ruskin who was very vocal in his condemnation of non-European art, design and decoration. He was known to have dismissed the Indian decorative arts on a number of occasions which is interesting as many of the followers of Ruskin and particularly those who became part of the British Arts and Crafts movement, were keen to introduce some of the more fundamental aspects of Indian decoration, particularly the aspect of the removal of any form of shadow or depth to pattern work. Although William Morris rarely praised the role that India played within contemporary nineteenth century decoration, particularly within textiles, it is clear that his work follows closely the tenets of Indian decoration. Although he would rather have given the praise to European medievalism, as indeed would Ruskin and many of the Arts and Crafts followers, there is little doubt that India had a long and consistent effect on British decoration. This became acute during the Great Exhibition of 1851 and thereafter was analysed and projected onto at least a certain element of Britain's decorative work, particularly in the form of textiles. Perhaps the British debt to Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, at least in the form of decoration and pattern, should be expressed a little more often than it is.

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