Biophilia, Nature and Decoration

Illustration: Hargreaves. Printed textile design, 1849.

Biophilia is the concept that humans have an innate biological need for a consistent connection with nature for their physical, mental and social well-being. It is this connection, or lack of, that gives us either a harmonious balance within ourselves, or a build-up of frustrations, alienation, illness and aggressive and unbalanced behaviour. Although the connection between the human species and its natural surroundings is by no means a new discovery, tagging the phenomena with the term biophilia does allow it to become both a contemporary talking point and focus for debate and exploration.

Although biophilia and biophilic design is mostly concerned with architecture and the human environment, allowing a mixture of man-made and natural phenomena within mostly urban environments, there is a case for expanding at least the general understanding of biophilia, to include the human decorative experience, with its innate need for stimulus and expression from the natural world. The potential of nature based decoration producing a similar harmonic balance within humans, certainly when compared to the minimal aesthetics expanded from the Modernist era, is perhaps self-evident. Considering the thousands of years of near constant nature-based human decoration compared to the few decades where lack of decoration was seen more as an intellectual gesture rather than an emotional one, it is perhaps hard not to see the connection.

Illustration: Photo taken in the local environment by the author, June 2012.

Biophilia sees decoration and ornamentation as natural analogues, that is secondary stimulation, in other words a connection with nature that is removed from direct contact, a representation of the real. However, despite the fact that decoration can only represent elements of the natural world through different mediums such as textiles, ceramics, glass, wood and metal for example, the connection is much more fundamental than just one that is visually motivated. Humans have spent most of their life as a species connected to nothing but the natural world. Our urban societies are a near-contemporary phenomenon and are therefore not really connected with the many memories and deep-rooted attachments to nature that were formed over countless generations. It is this attachment that has made nature-based decoration such a fundamental core value in human decorative arts.

The urban experience is often blamed for the uncoupling of humanity from its attachment to the natural environment, eventually resulting in indifference, neglect, even alienation of the environment outside of the city landscape, and certainly affecting our responsibilities towards a harmonious natural environment. City life in many respects can appear artificial and divorced from the world around it and certainly in a number of cases from the planet itself. Biophilia means to reconnect urban humanity with its long-time partner, nature. However, I wonder whether the link has ever been truly broken in all human concepts. Physically and practically, many of our urban environments contain much more concrete than plant life and creating an environmental harmony between the two may take some time or never really be achieved satisfactorily. 

 Illustration: Example of crewel embroidery work, 19th century.

Although many may not have the luxury or opportunity to experience nature as an enveloping partner in life, many still have emotional and spiritual connections with the natural world. That these are often manifested through decoration found on personal possessions such as jewellery, clothing and skin, personal or communal spaces, online personas and many other forms of personal and public contemporary life, shows how important the connection with nature still is for many. The old and faithful relationship between human and their natural environment is still jealously guarded by many and is manifested in a number of small ways whether that be physically through a flowering plant or compact herb garden, or imaginatively through the idealism of a perfect retreat which is very often set into or surrounded by a natural landscape.

By reinforcing our love of nature through the use of decoration and pattern within all of the mediums at the disposal of the artist, designer or maker, whether through industry or craft, allows us to constantly reaffirm our connection with the natural world. Many may find themselves living in a largely man-made environment, but flora and fauna decoration, whether through big flowers on a pair of curtains, leaves on a wallpaper, birds on a bed cover, unconsciously and consciously connect us with the life of our ancestors and the natural and real environment of the planet.

Illustration: Ceramic mural from the Mosque of Ibrahim Agha.

Artists, designers and makers will never tire of reinterpreting nature through fine art, pattern and craft. It is this continual and constant use of nature as first hand inspirational source material that keeps many in the creative community permanently in a state of wonder at the many manifestations of the natural world.

Further reading links:

Cotton Prints of the 1850s

Illustration: McNaughtan, Potter & Co. Printed calico textile design, 1850.

It is sometimes tempting to see British decoration and design of the nineteenth century, particularly the period between 1837 and the end of the century that we now term Victorian, as one of singularly bad or at least dubious taste. The period to be fair, does seem to have a propensity for consumer overdrive, with the markets being awash with dubious products that seem less than studied in their design and decoration content. However, the same could be said for our own era, which is equally awash with consumer goods that serve little if any purpose apart from instant though fleeting gratification and interest, and with a lack of care from either designer or decorator.

The three examples illustrating this article were produced by the Manchester based company of McNaughtan, Potter & Co in 1850. They are all surprisingly simplistic compared to what we would perhaps judge as normal for the period. To be fair there was a large proportion if inelegant and badly composed textile work on the market in 1850, much of it tended to be produced in-house by designers with little or no design background, many of which had no college experience and certainly no wider knowledge of the decorative arts apart from the company they worked in.

Although many British companies saw little point or interest in spending money and time on the design education of their workers, this was not necessarily true of all companies. Some had the foresight to either take on design students that had gone through some form of rudimentary college system, or indeed allowed staff to take part in part-time design school courses. However, these were usually within the spare time of their workers, which was often in the evenings after long hours at the company. Many of the workers were usually too exhausted to maintain after-hour lessons for any length of time.

Illustration: McNaughtan, Potter & Co. Printed cotton textile design, 1850.

More importantly, many of the courses supplied were not designed specifically for the industry and tended to merely copy those that were already in place for fine art. Therefore, many students or part-timers found themselves copying Greek architectural pieces in great detail and endlessly. That they learnt little if anything concerning the technical and practical necessities of surface pattern was a real concern at least for the industry if not for the design schools themselves, which were often in a state of denial as far as the relevance of their course work was concerned.

To this extent the reluctance of industry to invest time, money and individuals into any form of design education, has to be seen within the context of the reality of the period. Whether McNaughtan, Potter & Co invested in any form of design education, whether in-house or school of design, is unknown. However, Manchester, which at the time had an extensive textile industry and had made its fortune from that industry, was particularly keen to remain both competitive and a leader in its field and therefore it would have been surprising were companies not to have invested in at least a modicum of design and decoration education.

The examples shown here, although probably intended for the fashion industry rather than interiors, clearly shows that as far as pattern work is concerned, sometimes less can achieve infinitely more than an overworked and complicated piece of work. All three examples have kept the decorative work to a minimum with the simplest of pattern motifs being repeated endlessly and without borders or barriers, across the whole fabric. Keeping the colour scheme to a bare minimum has also helped to maintain the balance in these three textile pieces.

Illustration: McNaughtan, Potter & Co. Printed calico textile design, 1850.

Interestingly, fashion fabrics did very often maintain simpler and more effectual design techniques than interior fabrics, which were often overblown, and sometimes a cascade of contradictions and decorative details. Why this should be so could to a certain extent be blamed equally between consumer, retailer and manufacturer, with a percentage of blame going towards well-intentioned but ill informed critics who sometimes set themselves up as paragons of taste, while having little if any of their own. Their profusely published booklets, which often both contradicted each other as well as on occasion themselves, did little but confuse the consumer who had little if any true experience in designing or maintaining a fashionable or at least harmoniously well decorated house.

The fact that Victorian style and taste, which is often a subjective discipline, was a complicated subject that had more than one solution and more than one villain, can be seen most clearly when reflecting our own period, which in its turn will be analysed at some future date and probably found lacking in many of the fundamentals of good design, decoration and taste.

Further reading links:
Textile Designs: Two Hundred Years of European and American Patterns Organized by Motif, Style, Color, Layout, and Period
Pattern Design: Period Design Source Book
5,000 Years of Textiles
The Surface Designer's Handbook
Textiles: A Handbook for Designers (Revised Edition)
Designing and Printing Textiles
Printing by Hand: A Modern Guide to Printing with Handmade Stamps, Stencils, and Silk Screens
Handbook of Textile Design: Principles, Processes, and Practice
Toiles for All Seasons: French & English Printed Textiles
The Pattern Sourcebook: A Century of Surface Design
Allegra Hicks: An Eye for Design
Artists' Textiles: In America & Britain 1945-1976
The Modernist Textile: Europe And America
English and American Textiles: From 1790 to the Present
Textiles of the Arts and Crafts Movement