Bird

Bird was a design by William Morris from the 19th century which was later manufactured as a length of woven furnishing fabric. The detail included birds, flowers and foliage and an example of the original work can be found at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia.

Bird iself was predominantly blue in tone, with a stunning shade of it covering the entire background. The detail on top is delivered in light tones, including cream and some pale shades of pink and green. The whole piece connects beautifully with nature and reminds us of the beauty of the English countryside, be it the wilder rural areas or the private gardens dotted around the towns and villages. The pattern features two separate sets of birds, with one of the pairs facing each other and the other away. There are then some large flower heads, with the rest of the piece completed with a subtle use of leaves which are twisted in order to fill the majority of the available space. Morris would carefully plan his designs so that every corner would then match the repeated structure, and that the overall balance would work, regardless of how many times the artwork continued again and again. He became a master of producing floral patterns such as Bird, and would incorporate elements from his local environment into some of these designs.

This piece is located in Australia, and it is rare for any William Morris artworks to be found outside of the UK. There is, that being said, a number of items to be found in the US, where a society has even been set up in his honour, but aside from that the vast majority of articles left over from his career can be found in his native UK. The V&A Museum, along with a specialist museum in the east of London, perhaps serve his career the best, with many more items dispersed across smaller provincial museums and galleries as well as a number of small private collections. He remains highly regarded within the UK and new generations continue to appreciate the style of art that he brought to Victorian times. His focus on integrity and sustainability, along with more traditional techniques is also a perfect alternative to some of the negative elements that we find in modern society.

Although Bird is not perhaps his most famous design, it offers us another example of the types of content that can be found across his career, with a series of birds and plants relevant to life in the UK countryside. Few artists have gained as much inspiration from their local landscape as Morris would do, and at this time the UK was heading into the Industrial Revolution, where nature was certainly becoming under threat. Morris would help remind the population of the potential dangers of moving away from what really matters in life, which he believed was the production of high quality art, and the protection of our deepest values. He remains regarded as one of the most influential British artists in history.