Napkin Depicting The Five Senses 1891

Walter Crane designed this cotton napkin depicting the five senses sometime during his lifetime, from 1845 to 1915. Crane was deeply involved in the Arts and Crafts movement, an aesthetic and social project concerned with the role of art in everyday life. The visual elements of the napkin echo the movement’s interest in making beauty accessible to all, moving art out of the elite sphere of galleries and into ordinary homes. Its muted tones and intricate patterns, realized through the then-modern technique of machine printing, democratized beauty. The napkin encourages a contemplative pause as it engages the senses. The concept of the ‘five senses’ speaks to a very particular worldview, rooted in a Western philosophical tradition that seeks to categorize and understand human experience. The napkin invites us to consider how these senses shape our understanding of the world around us, but also to ask: whose senses, and whose world?