Trellis

Wallpaper design, Trellis, by William Morris.

William Morris made his first commercially available wallpaper design, Trellis, in 1862. Through his firm he began to sell it in 1864. At this time Morris was living in the Red House. There is speculation that the trellis at the Red House may have inspired the design of the wallpaper, however there is no direct evidence pointing to this conclusion. Like The Red House, Trellis was a collaboration between Morris and architect Philip Webb. Morris held doubts about his drawing abilities throughout his life and for this reason had Webb fill in the more complex figures of the birds. Morris was confident in his ability to draw vast amounts of patterned vegetation, all in his own flattened, consciously naive style. Imperfections in the his patterns were consciously permitted to arise, distinguishing his wallpaper design from anything manufactured in the Victorian Era.

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Citation:

"William Morris and the Trellis Wallpaper." The Textile Blog. Accessed December 8, 2012. 

     http://thetextileblog.blogspot.ca/2010/04/william-morris-and-trellis-wallpaper.html.

Possible points of departure from this article:

-Timeline of Morris' wallpapers, to examine how they progress and what other information they may be connected to: personal and cultural

-Show popular wallpaper patterns at the time of Trellis, before and after (Shows a shift in what brings beauty into the lives of the middle class at that time)