Windrush Possibly 1883 - 1925

"Windrush," a textile design, probably made with gouache or watercolor, no date, by William Morris. Looking at it, I feel for Morris, imagining him hunched over a table with a tiny brush trying to capture the essence of nature in this dense configuration of flora and fauna. The background is a very particular shade of light green, like the green of plant stems. The design of intertwining leafy branches creates an all-over surface with subtle depth, like looking into a forest. The branches are interrupted by clusters of stylized flowers, and the color palette is limited, but subtle, from the greens to the browns and creams. I imagine Morris, who was so committed to craftsmanship, wrestling with the tension between the handmade and the mass-produced, and longing for a return to a pre-industrial world. There’s a certain artifice to this vision of nature that is deeply intertwined with its beauty. Morris’s work, like all art, exists in an ongoing conversation, each generation borrowing, transforming, and responding to the ideas of the past.