Backhausen Interior Texiles 1899

Koloman Moser created this textile design for Backhausen, likely in the early 1900s, using watercolor on paper. Here, we see the making of interior textiles as an intimate, artistic endeavor. Moser's design features a network of flowing red and blue lines against a dark background, punctuated by circular forms. The watercolor technique gives a soft, almost dreamlike quality to the pattern, which is far from the industrialized looms that would eventually bring the design into being as a mass-produced fabric. This piece, then, represents the germ of an idea, translated from the artist's hand to the factory floor. Designs like this blur the boundaries between art and industry, hinting at the labor and social context involved in transforming a simple watercolor into a ubiquitous element of domestic life. It reminds us that even the most functional objects often begin with an act of creative imagination.