William Morris, designer

Arts and Crafts leader William Morris was one of many English architects, botanists, and fine artists who worked in textile design and manufacture in the mid-19th century. He excelled at rendering botanical subjects as complex repeating patterns, employing neglected techniques such as plant dyeing, hand dyeing, and block printing.

This pattern of dense vegetation undulating into ogival shapes illustrates Morris’s conviction that good design depicts perpetual motion. It also shows the lasting influence of exotic florals introduced into the design lexicon centuries prior and the more recent impact of Charles Darwin’s writings about evolution and the growth of plants.