Double Bough

William Morris, artist

1834–1896

Double Bough, 1890

Where object was made: England, United Kingdom

Material/technique: relief print; wallpaper

Dimensions:
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 564 x 1048 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 22 3/16 x 41 1/4 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 44 1/4 x 29 1/4 x 1 in
Weight (Weight): 13 lbs

Credit line: Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Memorial Art Fund

Accession number: 1989.0023

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World

The late 19th-century English Arts & Crafts Movement, championed by William Morris, was largely a reaction against mass-production in the wake of the 18th-century Industrial Revolution. Morris and his firm, Morris & Co., believed in excellence of design and craftsmanship in the objects they produced for human environments: textiles, wallpaper, rugs, furniture, stained glass, and books.

Morris & Co. emphasized natural form in design on both aesthetic and ethical grounds to the extent that one scholar has referred to “William Morris’s Socialist Biophilia,” citing Morris’s observation that “everything made by man’s hands has a form, which must be either beautiful or ugly; beautiful if it is in accord with Nature, and helps her; ugly if it is discordant.”

Exhibition Label:
"Quilts: A Thread of Modernism," Aug-2005, Debra Thimmesch and Barbara Brackman
William Morris’ line of wallpapers was produced to provide more affordable alternatives to the expensive, medieval-style tapestries and embroideries made by his firm. Morris and his designers were inspired by the Aesthetic Movement, whose affiliates sought to restore an appreciation for beauty they believed was absent from modern art. Each of the more than sixty different patterns features stylized vegetation in bright, natural hues spread densely over an equally colorful background.