Decorative Patterned Floors of Venice

Illustration: Church marble floor design from Venice.

It must seem sometimes as if Venice is awash with a complexity of floor designs for both religious and secular buildings. There are a number of explanations, reasoning's and conjecture as to why this should be, ranging from its Byzantine roots, its undoubted wealth and its climate. Whatever the real reasons, the city has produced some of the most fascinating, complex and richly textured floor decoration to be found anywhere in Europe, and certainly some of the best surviving examples that we have.

Much of the work is marble based with insets of semi-precious materials such as lapis lazuli, offsetting the rich earth tones that make up so much of the decorative work. The examples shown here are all from Venice bar two which originate from Ravenna a city that also has a long tradition and a very long connection with Byzantium. It is perhaps this very real connection with the Byzantine Empire and its sophisticated decorative arts system, a craft tradition that was often both admired and envied in equal measures, that gave the initial impetus to this very specialised decorative tradition.

Illustration: Church marble floor design from Venice.

Venetian decorative floors cover the whole gambit of decorative styles, as well as that of different historic eras. There are floors that are closer in style to that of the old Roman mosaic floors, complete with imagery of animals and plant life as well as the incorporation of decorative borders. There are also medieval styled floors, very often incorporated into religious buildings. These are often symbolically driven and therefore have medallions dedicated to saints, as well as the usual decorative abstract insets and borders. The three Venetian examples shown in this article are very much part of a more sophisticated Renaissance style, one that used a system of abstract mathematical decoration, often including an optical illusional concept whereby different multi-sided shapes would be incorporated into the pattern work. However, it would be true to say that many of the Renaissance era floor patterns were very much rooted in the pattern work produced in the medieval period.

Illustration: Marble floor design from St Mark's Basilica, Venice.

Although this sophisticated style is undoubtedly a reflection of the rich tradition that is such an integral part of the decoration and ornament of Venice, it is also a tradition that encompassed much of medieval Europe. There are many floors of tile, mosaic and inset pattern work, much of it perhaps surprisingly geometrically and mathematically more complex than perhaps we would at first assume, particularly for a period that is still often classed today as being a relatively simple and unsophisticated European era.

Many of these complex floors decorated religious buildings and would no doubt have had a spiritual dimension to them as well as one that was purely decorative. The complex pattern work could well have reflected, at least in part, the often rich and aesthetic qualities of the medieval mind. Some have noted that the significance of the complexity of floor designs within a religious context, might well have had something to do with ideas of humility, where the individual would have lowered their eyes within the church and therefore have contemplated the intricacy that could be found on the floor, rather than allowing their eyes to wander around. Whatever the true reasoning behind the amount of effort put into these floor patterns, and there is probably more than one, much of the spiritual and philosophical understanding that enriched and embellished the original pattern work, has now gone and that is certainly a shame. However, we are still left with some of the most beautifully elaborate and intricately decorated floors produced in any era. 

Illustration: Church marble floor designs from Ravenna.

What these floor decorations do show us, whether from Venice, Ravenna, or even across Europe as a whole, is how much that can be achieved by the bringing together what is in fact, when the decorative pattern work is broken down, a very simple set of blocks. These simple units can produce in themselves very little. However, putting them together in a framework, whether mathematically or purely decoratively, can produce an effect that appears multi-faceted, even three-dimensional in character. Many of the floors used colour as a particular tool for pattern. Floor patterns in Venice used as little as four distinct colours, but equally effective pattern work could be achieved with as little as two colours, using an effective positive and negative framework. Using tones of the same colour can also give the impression that an overall unifying effect has been achieved, this is often much more preferable and certainly more sophisticated than the use of acutely distinct colours. 

Many of the floors in Venice have used stone and marble that are earth based in tone and therefore the effect of the pattern work is much more subtle than perhaps some of the later and somewhat showier examples that can be seen in seventeenth and eighteenth century palaces across Europe. The earth tones were obviously an effective means of tying the floor to the building itself, often creating a unity when the same stone and marble was used throughout the building and not just within the decorative floor. 

Illustration: Marble floor design from the Church of St Vitale, Ravenna.

Unfortunately, many of these sophisticated floor pattern systems have been lost across Europe over the generations. Many of the religiously based ones were actually dug up by various enthusiastic members of the Protestant Reformation who often saw them as forms of idolatry or merely as reminders of the previous Catholic tenants. They were not replaced until the Victorian era, but these often bore no real correlation with the original floors and were merely mass produced encaustic tiles claiming to be produced in the style of the medieval, but perhaps any decoration is better than none at all.

At least a number of these startlingly beautiful floors do still exist in Venice, and for that we should be truly grateful.

Further reading links:

Ceramic Tile Designs by A W N Pugin

Illustration: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Ceramic tile design, 1850.

It is sometimes difficult when faced with obvious medieval styling to consider the artefacts produced as belonging to the modern world. In many respects, much of the work produced by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin falls into this category. Although Pugin is well known as an identifier of the Victorian Gothic revival of the 1840s onwards, some would even say that he came to encapsulate its style; it is perhaps somewhat misleading to see him as a form of retrogressive designer, someone who deals in pastiches and reimaginings.

Pugin produced work for the modern era. He was well aware of the increasingly industrial processes of the contemporary world of the early to mid-nineteenth century. He had a number of creatively productive relationships with companies that supplied a range of goods both industrially and by hand and was therefore a designer and architect of his time, a period where both systems, machine and hand, still had relatively large representations allowing for an often complex situation where interiors employed both mass and single production pieces.

Illustration: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Ceramic tile design, 1850.

One of Pugin's creatively interesting relationships was with Minton who supplied large-scale ceramic floor and wall tiles for both domestic and religious use. The ceramic tiles illustrating this article were all designed by Pugin and produced by Minton in about 1850. Although superficially appearing genuinely medieval in style and description, they are in fact Victorian and should be seen as modern interpretations or inspirations of medieval rather than copies or pastiches. Ceramic tiles for the ecclesiastical market became particularly profitable during the mid-nineteenth century as demand for supplies to both new and old churches were increased. Most were representational of the medieval style although it was made clear at the time that the new encaustic tile floors were a contemporary addition to an older church, and not necessarily a cosmetic lie. Many parishioners and local church leaders were often proud of their newly laid ceramic floors as it was often seen as an acceptable element of decoration in older churches that had often been stripped of their own colourful decoration, ornament and pattern work in the Protestant reformation.

Illustration: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Ceramic tile design, 1850.

Most of the tiles were not glazed, as this was considered dangerous for floor surfaces. However, tiling around altars could be glazed and therefore more obviously decorative. It is interesting that so many nineteenth century church floors are so often mistaken for the original medieval, not so much because that was their intention, but more because of our present day limited knowledge of genuine medieval in all its intricacies and differing styles, compared to the average knowledgeable mid-Victorian.

It is fair to say that during the career of Pugin there seemed some confusion as to the purpose of his work. What at first appeared to be genuine praise for Pugin's championship of the medieval turned to dismay in certain sectors when it became apparent that Pugin was not resurrecting the medieval but in fact redesigning the style for a modern and contemporary audience. The attitude of the increasingly disgruntled ecclesiastical critics who were adamant for a true medieval revival can perhaps be seen in the following 1846 quote from The Ecclesiologist magazine. 'Mr Pugin's Churches are not literal revivals of medieval churches, but rather conventional and modernised reflections of them.' The statement was no doubt intended as a critical note of Pugin's work. However, that his career was producing increasingly creative work that was obviously not a direct copy of the past was perhaps the point that was missed, intentionally or not.

Illustration: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Ceramic tile design, 1850.

The Victorian Gothic Revival as opposed to the earlier Georgian one was a design movement that had industry at its core. New construction and production methods were revolutionising architecture, ornamentation and design. Metal was becoming integral to many new buildings, including ecclesiastical, and large-scale production methods were expanding both choice and availability in early Victorian Britain. Although many buildings gave the appearance of hand crafted medievalism, most were constructed using at least some elements of mass production and many architects were drawn towards the conceivable possibilities of the modern world.

Pugin was no different in this respect and used both industrial mass manufactured products as well as hand crafted and this perhaps seemed too much of a compromise for some. However, along with Pugin's easy comfort with this compromise and his relatively relaxed acceptance of industry, new materials and working methods, his real connection with the connection with the medieval world seemed to many to be tenuous at best. It is perhaps telling that our contemporary world has now begun to recognise Pugin as one of the first prophets of Modernism, mainly due to his break with classicism, through Gothic, but also because of his pragmatic embracing of industrial processes. The fact that Pugin might not have seen himself as a full portent of Modernism is perhaps a compromise on our own part, that he was a creative individual of his own era, which encapsulated both machine and hand production, is nonetheless a factor that should be considered when examining Pugin and the Victorian Gothic Revival.

Further reading links:
God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain
Pugin's Gothic Ornament: The Classic Sourcebook of Decorative Motifs with 100 Plates (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Pugin: A Gothic Passion
A. W. N. Pugin: Master of Gothic Revival
Pugin's Ecclesiastical Ornament (Dover Pictorial Archives)
Contrasts and True Principles
Examples of Gothic architecture: selected from various ancient edifices in
Pugin's Floral Ornament CD-ROM and Book (Dover Full-Color Electronic Design)
Gothic ornaments, selected from various ancient buildings, both in England and Franc, during the years 1828, 1829, and 1830
True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture
The Stained Glass of A.W.N. Pugin
Augustus Welby Pugin, Designer of the British Houses of Parliament: The Victorian Quest for a Liturgical Architecture
Augustus Pugin Versus Decimus Burton: A Victorian Architectural Duel
Gothic Revival A&I (Art and Ideas)
The Gothic Revival (World of Art)
Gothic Revival
In Pointed Style: The Gothic Revival in America, 1800-1860