Janoschka magazine_Linked_V2_2017

6
i n s i g h t s
On a Roll
In the Middle Ages, tapestries and textile wall coverings,
often in expensive wool or silk, provided insulation
and decoration while showing the prosperity of
the house. Making tapestries was not only extremely
cost-intensive, but also time-intensive too. It was during
the Renaissance that the first paper wall decorations
appeared. Using wooden shapes for printing
and generally coloured by hand, patterned sheets, socalled
“domino papers”, quickly decorated walls and
ceilings or were used to line cupboards and drawers.
Initially, these papers also served as a cheap replacement
for wall textiles, leather fittings or panelling.
The revolutionary development of the printing process
was soon able to serve the increasing demand
of the rich for this alternative to wall decorations: the
use of several wooden blocks enabled the printing of
multicoloured, more complex designs as well as larger
areas with a repeat pattern, too. With the technical
achievements of paper manufacture and printing techniques
in the 18th century and their further developments
in the 19th, wallpaper manufacture blossomed
far beyond the expectations of its pioneers. If the first
designs were valued because of their skilful imitation
of sought-after textiles and other expensive wall
coverings, the later designs incorporated the opportunities
of specific manufacturing methods.
The first wallpapers to be completely machine-printed
came from Lancashire, England, around 1840. Steamdriven
wallpaper machines used paste-based paints to
bring the pattern onto the paper. Many of them could
print up to 18 colours at the same time and already
produced 2,000 rolls per day. The next step in the industrial
surge of wallpaper brought a significant advantage:
rotation printing enabled manufacture “on the
production line”.
Paper was relatively
expensive until the advent
of steam-driven papermaking
processes in the
19th century. Increasing
mechanisation led to
automated lines like this
one, where continuous
production was possible.
France, circa 1880.
As cheap products, wallpapers were accessible to
an ever-widening public. This often resulted in their
design being neglected and increasingly simplified,
almost shoddy. It was for this reason that William
Morris and his “Arts and Crafts Movement” turned
down industrial designs and looked for a return to
the qualities of a particular craftsman’s own art. They
found their own stylistic idiom, even for wallpapers,
and revolutionised the designs with their typical flat,
stylised, naturalistic patterns in deep, but at the same
time, muted colours.
"Whatever you have in your rooms,
think first of the walls, for they
are that which makes your house
and home." William Morris
One of the most beautiful and successful wallpapers was
“Eldorado” from 1848. A total of 1,554 printing blocks
were required to transfer this dreamlike landscape onto paper:
lush gardens with roses, peonies, clematis, pines, palms
and much more. The inspiration and its implementation
were based on botanical studies in the greenhouses belonging
to the wallpaper manufacturer, Zuber.