In Principles of Decorative Design Dresser does not
mention tiles apart from those on roofs, does not mention
floor decoration excepting that should a floor have a
decorated border the carpet should compliment it, and
when discussing decoration for walls only speaks of
painting and papers. In the chapter on buildings he only
discusses rooms where tiles are not normally used apart
from in fireplaces. He does not discuss fireplaces, for
they are architectural fittings designed by architects
not by ornamentists, he does mention fire-irons but
mostly to say that the decoration is inappropriate for
tools.
The book was published in 1873 three years after the
so-called Dresser blue tits and butterfly tile designs
were registered. The cranes design for ceramic flowerpot
adapted for tile is also usually said to be circa 1870,
although it may be earlier. Joan Jones and Lockett give
this date, the Metropolitan Museum of Art suggests that
the design is circa 1860 and states that the flowerpot
bearing it was exhibited at the 1862 International
Exhibition in London. Had Dresser designed any tiles
prior to the writing of this book I can not see how he
could have failed to mention the subject, that he does
not surely indicates that he did not. Similarly in
Studies in Design published three years later in 1876
Dresser does not discuss tiles.
Dresser's chapter about buildings is most illuminating
for the only parts of buildings he discusses are rooms
and apparently only the main domestic rooms and larger
commercial and institutional halls. There is no mention
of hallways or corridors, bathrooms or kitchens where
tiles may normally be used. He does not discuss floors
excepting that they should be plain and their covering in
a chapter on carpets, all he discusses is surface
decoration of walls and ceilings, in paint and paper. He
introduces the chapter by expressing the difficulty of
designing for rooms because the architecture is
preeminent.
We commence by considering how rooms should be
decorated; yet, in so doing, we are met at the very
outset by a great difficulty, as the nature of decoration
of a room should be determined by the character of its
architecture. My difficulty rests here. How am I to tell
you what is the just decoration for a room, when the
suitability of the decoration is often dependent upon
even structural and ornamental details; and when, in all
cases, the character of the room should be in harmony
with the character of the architecture.
Now to the decoration of a room. If one part only
can be decorated, let that one part be the ceiling.
Nothing appears to me more strange than that our
ceilings, which can be properly seen, are usually white
in middle-class houses, while the walls, which are always
in part hidden, and even the floor, on which we tread,
should have colour and pattern applied to them; and of
this I am certain, that, considered from a decorative
point of view, our ordinary ceiling is wrong.
This is the view of an artist looking for the largest
canvas to decorate and misses the practicalities of life.
He is overly obsessed with decorating ceilings, and so
falls in to the artist's trap of form over function.
Ceilings for the most part are out of the range of normal
vision, we do not generally look upwards, we look around
us. Our eyes are positioned to look around us, if we were
meant to frequently look directly above nature would have
provisioned for it with eyes in the top of our heads.
We only like a white ceiling because we have been
accustomed to such from infancy, and because we have been
taught to regard a clean white ceiling as all that is to
be desired.
Ceilings, especially those in domestic interiors, are
painted white for a very good reason, to provide
illumination. Lighting was restricted to gas, oil and
candle which do not provide great illumination and with
the exception of well managed gas lighting, which was
only usually found in the main rooms of the house, has a
yellow tinge. Light comes from above, the sun in the sky,
and the earth below is dark, this is the natural order
and is the most harmonious.
Domestic interiors should be comforting, echoing the
natural world, for they are where one relaxes after the
exertions of the day, after the trials of work. For this
reason most wall decoration is of leaves and flowers, and
that the dominant colour is green which induces the
greatest comfort and relaxation of all colours. When
observing nature there is nothing more pleasing than a
view of the grass of the field and the leaves of trees
bathed in sunlight only disturbed by the flowers and
fauna going about their business, tiny things in relation
to the dominant green.
Not only were ceilings best in white for the evenings
when illumination was provided by fossil fuel means but
also in the daytime to maximise the available light. All
rooms can not have a south facing window and the light
grey overcast skies pervasive in Britain and most of the
then developed world did not a great source of light
provide in north facing rooms. Windows were a costly
element in the construction of buildings being many times
the cost of bricks and mortar. Furthermore a tax on glass
had been in place and although abolished twenty eight
years before Dresser's writing few existing buildings
were adapted with larger windows.
The glass tax was introduced in Great Britain in 1746
and was only abolished in 1845. This was primarily due to
the denudation of the woodlands of Britain for fuel for
glass making and it was the development and wide
deployment of of coal fired furnaces that preceded the
abolition. Iron manufacture had also been responsible for
the depletion of Britain's woodlands but in this period
most iron was imported from Sweden and Russia.
An 1845 account in the medical journal The Lancet
described the glass tax as an "absurd impost on light"
and remarks how the lack of light adversely affects
quality of life.
In a hygienic point of view, the enormous tax on
glass, amounting to more than three hundred per cent on
its value, is one of the most cruel a Government could
inflict on the nation ... The deficiency of light in
town habitations, in a great measure caused by the
enormous cost of glass, is universally admitted to be one
of the principal causes of the unhealthiness of
cities.
Ceilings were also subject to the pollution from light
sources, gas, oil and candles all produce some smoke
which rises with convection and settles on the ceiling.
There was also smoke from fireplaces and from gentlemen's
cigars assisted by convection to rise to the ceiling, and
the air in general was much dirtier from the fires of
homes and the furnaces of industry. What better then than
to have a white ceiling, easily repainted with whitewash
from time to time, practical and economical for creating
a pleasing and productive room?
Dresser advocates patterns all over the ceiling, in
such colours as deep blue and black, and goes so far as
to denigrate advocates of lighter decoration. Simple
patterns in cream-colour on blue ground, but having a
black outline, also look well; and these might be
prepared in paper, and hung on the ceiling as common
paper-hangings, if cheapness is essential. Gold ornaments
on a deep blue ground, with black outline, also look rich
and effective. These are all, however, simple treatments,
for any amount of colour may be used on a ceiling,
provided the colours are employed in very small masses,
and perfectly mingled, so that the effect produced is
that of a richly coloured bloom. A ceiling should be
beautiful, and should also be manifest; but if it must be
somewhat indistinct, in order that the caprices of the
ignorant be honoured, let the pattern be in middle-tint
or pale blue and white only.
I think that Dresser has completely lost the plot,
fails to see the purpose of rooms in houses and merely
views them as canvases on which to pronounce bold
artistic statements. In some rooms this may be
appropriate, those which are solely for entertainment and
enjoyment of the arts such as a music room, but such
rooms are few and supplementary to the drawing and dining
rooms that are essential in every home.
In the chapter on carpets Dresser urges; "I cannot
too strongly advise the young ornamentist to study the
principles on which Nature works." Again when
speaking of carpets he references mankind's connection
with nature and the desirability of recreating it in
interiors. "Man naturally accustomed to tread on
grass, when brought into a state of civilisation, seeks
some covering for his floor which shall be softer to the
tread and richer in colour than stone or brick. And in
our northern climate he seeks also warmth; hence he
chooses not a mere matting, or lattice of reeds, but a
covering such as shall satisfy his requirements."
Had Dresser applied the same principle to ceilings he
would say that ceilings should be bright, in white, light
grey or light blue, to reflect nature. It is clear that
Dresser lacked a full understanding of architecture, he
only addresses the subject only to say that decoration of
buildings should be in harmony with the architecture of
that building. The purpose of architecture is to provide
buildings suited for their purpose not to provide
canvases for artists to decorate.
I have no doubt that similar comments to mine were
raised by others in the day, the quotation from Wendy
Walgate, Dresser: Influences & Impact of a Victorian
Visionary, which lacks a citation is likely from such a
commentary. "Dresser himself asserted that ornament
and not architecture was his "sphere", however he
believed that the two disciplines were
indivisible."
Indivisble insofar as the ornamentist should follow
the lead of the architect and they must be in harmony.
Dresser purposefully avoids design disciplines and
fixtures that are the province of architects, no tiles,
no fireplaces, no windows, and no doors, he addresses
surface decorations, walls and ceilings that may be
painted or papered, and carpets. This is indicative of
the great divide between the disciplines of architect and
ornamentist.
Tiles Designed by Dr
Christopher Dresser?
Some sightings of
'Dresser tiles'
Created 16 May 2014
Edited 27 May 2014