Arts and Crafts Rugs

Arts and Crafts movement was a British aesthetic movement of the second half of the 19th century. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution some artists, inspired by John Ruskin, tried to reform design and decoration in the Victorian Era. It was a reaction against a perceived decline in standards that the reformers associated with machinery and factory production.
Among them was the English reformer, poet, and designer William Morris (1834-1896), who, in 1861, founded a firm of interior decorators and manufacturers—Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company (after 1875, Morris and Company)—dedicated to recapturing the spirit and quality of medieval craftsmanship.

Morris and his associates (among them the architect Philip Webb and the painters Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones) produced handcrafted metalwork, jewelry, wallpaper, textiles, including rugs and carpets, furniture, and illustrated books. The “firm” was run as an artists’ collaborative, with the painters providing the designs for skilled craftsmen to produce. To this date many of their designs are copied by designers and furniture manufacturers.

For the purpose of “recapturing the spirit and quality of medieval craftsmanship” Morris and his associates searched deeply in Persian and Irish illustration as well as observing the nature and the gothic tradition of English churches. They were great wallpaper and textile designers and therefore so enthusiastic about patterns.

It is said that Morris persuaded the museum to buy the Ardabil carpet which was made in the town of Ardabil in north-west Iran, the burial place of Shaykh Safi al-Din Ardabili, a Sufi leader, ancestor of Shah Ismail, founder of the Safavid dynasty (1501-1722). In 1870s, the shrine suffered an earthquake, and the carpet was sold to a Manchester carpet firm, who in turn put it up for sale in 1892. On inspecting the carpet on behalf of the V&A, William Morris reported it of “singular perfection … logically and consistently beautiful”. The Museum acquired the carpet for £2,000 in March 1893. Morris also advised the South Kensington Museum in the acquisition of fine Kerman carpets.

The book of Kells was another matter of interest for the Arts and Crafts artists. It is an illuminated gospel book, a masterpiece of the ornate Hiberno-Saxon style. It is probable that the illumination was begun in the late 8th century at the Irish monastery on the Scottish island of Iona and that after a Viking raid the book was taken to the monastery of Kells in County Meath, where it may have been completed in the early 9th century.

About a hundred original hand-woven rugs were woven according to the designs of Morris himself. Although Hammersmith, a company he founded, produced machine woven carpets long before he try hand-woven production. In his rug designs, he used Persian basic structures such as central medallion and Eslimi (arabesque) rotating forms in large scale, like those in Persian illumination style rather than in woven pieces.

Morris’ original hand-woven examples were woven on cotton foundation with wool and silken piles. Their knots are symmetrical (Turkish). The raw materials used is of highest quality possible. Studying Indian, Persian and Turkish royal pieces, he learned the ways silk and wool were used together and interact with different colors.

Morris has well-known apprentices and coworkers such as John Henry Dearle, who designed for rugs. The most important figure after Morris who did so was Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857 –1941). He was an English architect and furniture and textile designer. Voysey’s early work was as a designer of wallpapers, fabrics and furnishings in Arts and Crafts style and he made important contribution to the Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style).

In 1897, Voysey was commissioned to design for Donegal Carpets. The company Donegal Carpets was founded in 1898 in the Irish town by Scottish textile manufacturer Alexander Morton. Before establishing Donegal Carpets, Morton had first established a carpet crafting house on the west coast of Ireland and put to practice the techniques of the Donegal people who had been working with wool for generations. The first examples of Donegal carpets were designed with Celtic patterns.

Voysey, too, was found of interactions between wool and silk, using them in creative manners. His designs incorporated field repeats of stylized patterns from nature. Their stylization bears resemblance to Ancient Egyptian wall painting as well as Indian and Ottoman tiling. He also have rug designs in long vertical format following Far Eastern compositions.

Arts and Crafts Rugs

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