The Influence of Islamic Decoration on the Victorian

Illustration: Wall tiling decoration of the Pavilion of Mahubay, 16th century

The influences and origins of nineteenth century English decorative arts, its pattern work, design styles and principles, is both complex and wide ranging. However, at the forefront of these influences is undoubtedly the impact of the decorative arts of Islam. From the reform principles of Owen Jones to the accomplished founder of the English Arts & Crafts movement William Morris, to the many designers, decorators, critics and writers of Victorian Britain, Islam proved to be a particularly rich deposit of what determined to be the fundamental level of all design, decoration and pattern as seen by the Victorians. Many saw and were on record as stating, that the principles behind the Islamic decorative arts system, along with its extremely effective visual record, was the only effective means of producing contemporary surface or flat pattern work.

Illustration: Islamic wall tiling decoration, 16th century

From woven and printed textiles, to carpet weaving, wallpaper design and ceramic tile work, the Victorians took Islamic design principles to heart. Non-representational, flat and graphic inspired pattern work was produced across design disciplines, and while some may dismiss this appearance as a form of fashion or intermittent enthusiasm for the decorative effects of Islamic design, very much as the revival movements that plagued the nineteenth century, this particular movement was much more centrally based within the Victorian decorative psyche.

Islamic designers were particularly expert at producing surface pattern. They had an innate understanding of both the materials used and the medium of surface decoration, as well as a mature approach to colour and tone. This greatly appealed to the English design reform movement. These reformers were trying to make sense of the muddled and chaotic decorative arts that had been a product of the first half of the nineteenth century with its new, wide-ranging but undisciplined manufacturing and retail system. They were determined that the second half of their century was to see a more settled period that used good judgement and sound design principles. They had particular issues with the whole aspect of the use of three-dimensional style illusions used on flat surfaces.

Illustration: Wall tiling decoration of Qasr Radwan, Cairo, 17th century

One of the fundamental points of surface decoration and design is to understand and therefore appreciate the surface that is to be decorated. Textiles in particular need good judgement when working out pattern work. Although three dimensional illusions may appear to be acceptable within the framework of the history of decoration and particular that of Europe, in general they are ill suited to the medium. Flat and graphic style pattern work is much more sympathetic to a textile medium and can produce much more in the way of variation between simplicity and complexity, colour and tone, than can ever be achieved with the slim palette of realism.

Illustration: Wall tiling decoration of Qasr Radwan, Cairo, 17th century

British design reformers saw Islamic principles of decoration as a perfect format to be used within their own decorative arts system. Colour and form were to be placed above that of any type of realism, or false illusion as they preferred to term it. From this fundamental view of decoration, all pattern work it was hoped would eventually one day be based. Much of the decorative styling of the eighteenth century was either dismissed or treated as essentially flawed. Although this attitude and perspective on the decorative arts was by no means universal, it did take on an aspect that eventually proved to be amongst the building blocks of Modernism.

In some respects it could be said that there is a linkage, however tenuous, between Islamic decoration, the reform movements within Europe and the eventual Modernist stand that has shaped much of the world we live in today. Although the Modernist movement might well have arrived at and achieved its ultimate goal of form follows function, without Islam, it is interesting nonetheless to speculate whether the same result might have been delayed or have taken a tangential route even, without the timely example of Islamic decoration and the principles underlying that decorative work.

Illustration: Wall tiling decoration of the Mosque of Amir Shaykhu, Cairo, 18th century

Reference links:
Islamic Designs for Artists and Craftspeople (Dover Pictorial Archive)
The Majesty of Mughal Decoration: The Art and Architecture of Islamic India
Islamic Designs in Color (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Islamic architecture and its decoration, A.D. 800-1500;: A photographic survey
Nishapur: Some Early Islamic Buildings and Their Decoration/E0058P
Ornament and Decoration in Islamic Architecture
The Language of Pattern: An Enquiry Inspired by Islamic Decoration (Icon Editions)
Islamic Designs (International Design Library)
The Art of the Islamic Tile
Islamic Ornament
Islamic Designs for Cornice, Balcony and Mashrabiyah Decoration, from "Art and Industry" Giclee Poster Print by Jean Francois Albanis De Beaumont, 12x16
Islamic Design (Dover Pictura)
Splendors of Islam: Architecture, Decoration and Design
Pattern in Islamic Art
Arabic Geometrical Pattern and Design (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Ornament and Design of the Alhambra (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Geometric Patterns from Islamic Art & Architecture

Wallpaper Design by Sidney Haward

Illustration: Sidney Haward wallpaper frieze 1893

Sidney Haward, one of the best known of British textile and wallpaper designers of the period spanning the decades that saw the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, is relatively unknown today. Despite the fact that Haward was seen in the same light and at the same design level as other British designers such as Voysey and Mawson, and that he also ran the Haward Design Studio which was to provide Liberty with much of its design work during this period, it seems strange yet interesting how his work seems to have faded away.

The illustrations shown in this article are all wallpaper designs and, apart from the frieze which was produced in 1893, are from the first decade of the twentieth century. Although by no means particularly astounding design-wise, Haward's work is still within the general remit of what can only be called the English Art Nouveau style. In other words an Art Nouveau decorative format that was much more formally based than perhaps was expected to be found as the norm in Europe.

Illustration: Sidney Haward wallpaper design 1908

Haward's pattern work is fairly complex for the period and has some reminiscences and nuances that bind it to the much earlier Gothic styles of Pugin's wallpaper work for example. It is the graphic, but symmetrically standardised format that clearly separates it from anything that might be considered free-flowing and asymmetrical as would be expected with much of the French and Belgian versions of the Art Nouveau.

It is sometimes difficult to separate out the English hesitancy towards the new, their suspicious nature as regards Europe in general, and their natural tendency for the reigning in of any form of decorative excess. These wallpapers, in effect, have tried to find a solution to what many might judge as a difficult assault course of contradictions. As decoration they are by no means subtle and have taken a format so rigidly framed as to appear intransigent and stilted.

Illustration: Sidney Haward wallpaper design 1908

For work that was produced nearer the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, rather than that of the beginning, they appear a little out of synch with the standards of decorative work being produced across Europe, particularly in Germany and Austria. From the days of William Morris and the ascendancy of the English Arts & Crafts movement, English decorative design work seemed to have lost both impetus and direction.

While there was to a certain extent, an interest in England towards the new formats being devised in Europe, the interest tended to be both sporadic and localised. Many were unconvinced that there was any long term gains to be made from the decorative movements in Europe, particularly those that dealt with the future of architecture and design in general. However, it is such a shame that more potential couldn't be identified amongst the English, who were still very much involved with the Arts & Crafts movement, and so therefore much of the groundwork that was laid in Germany for the eventual birth of the Bauhaus, was largely missing in England.

Illustration: Sidney Haward wallpaper design 1907

Medieval Sicilian Textiles

Illustration: Sicilian Islamic themed woven brocade 12th century

Although the Islamic occupation of Sicily did not reach its final stage until 965, the influence of partial occupation and trade links with the larger Islamic world for the previous two centuries had an enormous influence on the crafts and culture of this Mediterranean island.

Sicily was well known for its textile production during the emirate period of its history. To be fair, most if not all of the textiles produced were largely Islamic in flavour and theme. However, Sicily had long been both a province of Byzantium and had maintained a sizeable Greek population. The culture of the eastern Greek empire was enmeshed into the local one, so that what textile work was produced had a combination of Byzantine and Islamic flavours, though of course it should be noted that the Islamic influence was always the strongest.

Illustration: Satellite map of Sicily

Sicilian Textiles not only found their way to different ports along the North African coast, but interestingly, much further north into Central Europe. They were well prized, expensive and even made their way into royal collections. It is interesting that although Christian Europe was technically in confrontation with Islam throughout this period, at a practical level trade and cultural exchange seemed relatively unhindered. It would be interesting to note how far Sicilian produced textiles, with their Islamic inscriptions and motifs, travelled into the heart of Christian Europe.

With the coming of the Normans to the island in about 1060, it added yet another element to the already confusing layers of Sicilian culture. Without going into the politics or religious aspects of the island's history in too great a detail, it is fair to say that the combination of cultures, although clashing ideologically, did produce some of the most beautiful textiles of the period. The border area of Islam which was to include all of the major islands in the Mediterranean from Crete to Mallorca, and of course modern Spain and Portugal, was a hot bed of innovation and creative thinking through a whole range of crafts from ceramics through to textiles.

Illustration: Spanish Islamic woven textile design 14th century

The illustrations shown in this article are all from the twelfth century and all from Sicily, bar one. The fourteenth century woven textile design above was placed here because for a long period this particular fabric was considered to be either Sicilian or Spanish. It couldn't really be decided in which region it had originated. It seems as though most experts are now happy to authenticate the design as being from Islamic Spain. However, although it is important to trace the origins of this particular piece, what is more important is that it also clearly represents a very similar style to the work produced in Sicily. It can be seen from this how extraordinarily expert was both the design and production of these European Islamic textiles.

Illustration: Sicilian Islamic themed woven brocade 12th century

It would be tempting, though inaccurate, to see Sicily with its Classical Greek and Roman routes, its layers of Byzantine, Islamic and Latin Christian cultures along with that of the Normans, as an ethnically and religiously tolerant oasis in the maelstrom of early medieval Europe. Although admittedly even long after Sicily became a province of the Normans, Arabic was still spoken as the court language and much of the Islamic institutions were kept in place, it proved only a matter of time before an intolerance of Islam, much harsher than that of the previous Islamic rulers, was set in place. Islam and all its external influences, including the decorative arts, were cleansed of much of the work that could be attributed to Islam. This spelt the end of a period of Sicilian textile history that had separated it, in style and influence, from the mainland of Italy and much of Europe. Later Sicilian textile work, although individual to the island to some extent, did tend to follow the fashions and themes set down by the mainland and the rest of Europe.

Illustration: Sicilian silk textile design 12th century

The loss of a connection between Sicily and North Africa was also a loss of connection between Europe and the Islamic arts. As European history developed any connections that did remain between the two cultures got narrower and more alien, until eventually the gulf between the two proved too difficult to bridge. However, these Sicilian Islamic themed textiles are still part of the European tradition of textile design and they were to play an interesting and important role in nineteenth century Britain in particular, where William Morris much admired the workmanship of these iconic designs.

Reference links:
History of Islamic Sicily (Islamic Surveys)
Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Diwan (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)
Siculo-Norman Art: Islamic Culture in Medieval Sicily (Islamic Art in the Mediterranean)
Al-Idrisi and Representations of the Medieval Muslim World: An entry from Gale's Science and Its Times