Glazed Chintz c. 1936

Edmond W. Brown made this design for glazed chintz with pencil and watercolor. He must have really loved pattern, and the way colors repeat and play off each other. The color palette is so gentle, mostly soft pinks, greens, and browns, like a faded memory. The surface feels almost velvety, with a density to the design that encourages close looking. I keep coming back to the way the birds are perched on urns overflowing with flowers. There's something so optimistic and abundant about that image, birds and blooms all clustered together, reaching skyward. It reminds me of the work of William Morris, in the way he also built up layers of pattern. It also makes me think about the links between different generations of artists, and how we keep coming back to the same basic questions, how we relate to the world, and what we choose to emphasize in our work.