Verneuill and the Full Decorative Experience

Illustration: Maurice Pillard Verneuill, 1897.

Some of the most dazzlingly decorative pattern work produced in recent times is that by designer Maurice Pillard Verneuill. From about the end of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, Verneuill produced a consistently high standard of decorative work that could be used as both a source for practical application as well as an even richer source of inspiration.

All five of the examples shown in this article were originally published in 1897 and although to all intents and purposes Verneuill's style can be firmly placed within the realms of Art Nouveau, there is always usually much more to the work of a designer than a handy period name in which to place them. In some respects decorative art periods and eras can often be seen as more of a convenient framework in which to coral creative people of their day, rather than being necessarily and entirely accurate. Therefore, many designers can for example be dropped into Gothic, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Modernism, etc. However, many are placed into these categories when only one facet of their creative style fits the period, most creative people are multi-faceted and have an annoying tendency, at least to writers of coffee table books, of not entirely fitting the mould of the decorative period. Often these annoying extras are conveniently ignored or briefly explained away as a one off anomaly, or even as some form of negative quality within their career. However, this is to ignore the complexity of the individual creative who often brings in design elements from any number of sources including childhood, literature, past and present likes and interests, family, friends, cultural and religious connections, and many more. It is the complexity and the ability through that complexity of not fitting entirely and conveniently into decorative periods that have usually been designated long after the style era has passed, that should be both celebrated and widely acknowledged as the human creative condition.

Illustration: Maurice Pillard Verneuill, 1897.

To see it within a contemporary framework, at some point in the future our own era will have a name attached to it, which will be neatly packaged and designed, leaving no untidy extras. Most of us will be forced to inhabit this style era even though many may well feel that they had little if anything in common with the designation. However, as we may all be long dead by then, we will have little in which to argue otherwise. It does raise the rather complex issue of future generations having a decidedly different view of events as well as individuals and their creative careers. Do we and our descendants forcibly manipulate the past creative world to suit our own agendas and tidy world view, placing everyone within eras such as Art Nouveau, Art Deco, etc.? Every creative person would like to be seen, and probably deserves to be seen as an individual, outside of the constraints of an imposed design era. Unfortunately, that won't happen anytime soon and so we are left with the inexact and often crude decorative style eras imposed by others.

Illustration: Maurice Pillard Verneuill, 1897.

To be fair, to some extent at least it could be said that Verneuill fits well into these imposed decorative eras, particularly with his portfolio work which was meant to be practically applied by designers and companies through a range of disciplines. Therefore, he produced a number of portfolios of work throughout the period of the 1890s and 1900s that clearly followed at least the generalised ideals of Art Nouveau. He was still popular in the 1920s and was by then producing much more Modernist influenced work which appealed to the new post World War I decorative era, what would eventually be classed in the 1960s as Art Deco. However, as already stated, this can only ever be an approximation and there are far too many internal and external factors regarding the individual creative, to make labels either altogether meaningless, or an unhappy approximation.

Illustration: Maurice Pillard Verneuill, 1897.

Although much of the portfolio work that Verneuill produced in 1897 contained pages of either singular or multi-patterned choices, I have chosen five examples that give what appears to be an almost all-encompassing decorative experience. Here Verneuill has allowed the page to become a set in which a number of factors of decoration have been allowed to enter, interestingly inclusive of decoration for three dimensional pieces, ceramics in particular. Although many ceramicists did use Verneuill's work and others to decorate a range of practical and decorative ceramic ware, many of the portfolios gave only flat pattern as examples. Verneuill has interestingly expanded this to include vessels with idealised pattern work. All of which gives these pages in particular an overall feeling not so much depth, which is passed over quite lightly with a superficial perspective, but a genuine depth of pattern that almost luxurious in its rich use of line and colour. 

 Illustration: Maurice Pillard Verneuill, 1897.

In some respects, these pages which to all intents and purposes were meant as a practical and technical tool, have taken on a distinctive appeal all of their own. They give a genuine understanding of why decoration and pattern is so important not only to the decorative artist and designer, but to humanity as a whole. These pages are a celebration by Verneuill of the appeal, passion, even necessity of decoration which is shown to be both timeless and within its time. By this I mean that although Verneuill produced work that was obviously influenced by his own contemporary world, one that was heavily intrigued by the many differing aspects of Art Nouveau, he also incorporated elements of design and decoration that made contacts with not only previous decorative eras, but previous cultures. Creative people rarely limit themselves to their own contemporary era and often gain inspiration from either the physical survivals from the ancient past, or even that daydreamed from ancient cultures and eras. It all adds to the vocabulary of the creative individual and their resulting work, which in turn adds to the full decorative experience. Although Verneuill may not be as well known today as perhaps he should be, these pages must surely give an indication as to the high status he naturally held as a decorative designer.

Further reading links:

The Stoddard Design Library

Illustration: Part of the Stoddard Design Library.

After much uncertainty the Stoddard design library of pattern books was finally acquired by the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow School of Art Library this year.

The pattern books consist of over five hundred volumes and were used originally by the James Templeton & Co carpet manufacturers of Glasgow, as an inspirational source by the company's designers. When Stoddard took over Templeton, the books became part of that company's assets.

It was recently thought that Glasgow University and the Glasgow School of Art would not be in a position to procure these valuable pattern books, and that they might either go abroad, or worse still, be broken up and sold separately. However, this historically important asset, both for Glasgow and for the history of carpet and rug design was, through the combined effort of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the National Fund for Acquisitions, Friends of the National Libraries, Glasgow Museums Acquisitions Fund, Friends of Glasgow Museums and a host of others, saved intact for the people of Glasgow and the wider world.

The entire collection of pattern books are now in the process of being both sorted and catalogued in order to make them ultimately available for wider public access.

You have to wonder, for every Stoddard design library that is saved for future use and posterity, how many others are lost or irretrievably broken up, sold and then scattered across the world through different libraries, museums and private collections. Over the last century, so many companies have been separated from their pattern books and design libraries that it is a wonder that any have survived intact. These company assets are important articles of history, both design and social, that everything should be done to procure them intact, as far as possible, for the benefit of future generations of the general public.

Sometimes these pattern books were so important, and companies were so avaricious regarding their contents, that rivals were often locked in battles in order to buy out and take over each other, just in order to procure the volumes held by their rival. This is understandable, especially when profitable designer names were associated with the pattern books. A good example is when Morris & Co went into voluntary liquidation in 1940, Sanderson bought up from the receiver all of the wallpaper blocks and pattern books and is now one of the major producers of William Morris wallpapers and textiles, all derived from the pattern books bought in 1940.

However, as long as these design libraries of pattern books are either still in circulation, as with Sanderson, or saved for public access, as with the Glasgow School of Art Library, their usefulness and relevance continues.

Further reading links:
Glasgow School of Art Library
THE STORY OF BRITISH CARPETS
A History of British Carpets: From the Introduction of the Craft until the Present Day
A century of British fabrics, 1850-1950: Carpets, by J.H. Mellor. Printed & woven fabrics, by Frank Lewis. Wall papers, by E.A. Entwisle