Floral Wallpaper: A Look Back at the Future of Design

Until recently, floral wallpaper had been relegated to the periphery of interior design, consigned to an "old-fashioned" aesthetic: it appears to evoke either the quaint attic room of an English bed-and-breakfast or the peeling walls of a long-abandoned house. In any case, it has an undeniably old character; to the modern consumer, it is a staid relic from a bygone era. These new styles breathe new life into a long and storied tradition that is nearly as old as civilization itself.

The origins and evolution of floral wallpaper are hazy at best; it is a particularly fragile artefact, frequently hidden beneath layers of paint or more fashionable decor. The earliest, most primitive versions of floral wallpaper can be traced back to cave paintings, when humans would decorate walls with what they saw around them (typically animals, but in some places natural motifs). A more formal, genealogical history of wallpaper begins in China in 105 B.C.E., shortly after the invention of paper. As a logical extension of the new medium, Chinese artists would paint luxurious outdoor scenes on paper and hang their works on the wall to bring some of nature's splendour indoors; these early creations are regarded as the forerunners of modern wallpaper, floral or otherwise. Wallpaper first arrived in Europe in the 15th century, courtesy of Eastern Asia, as new trade routes opened up. These early forerunners, which were less expensive to produce and far more adaptable than the tapestries and leather hangings popular in the Middle Ages, focused primarily on political and religious designs before progressing into geometric patterns. By the 1600s, flock wallpaper had been invented, ushering in a more naturalistic aesthetic.

 Floral prints were especially popular in England (where they have remained an ingrained feature of the traditional British aesthetic), whereas countries such as Holland and Switzerland preferred wood grain wallpapers. With the introduction of colour printing in the late 17th century, as well as the ability to roll several sheets of paper together, the market for wallpapers began to expand, embracing larger, more complex designs. Panorama wallpapers became popular, moving away from repetition and into large expanses of natural scenes; outside of wealthy homes, the wallpapers were installed in public spaces to educate the unwieldy masses. Floral wallpaper was at its peak in the 18th and 19th centuries, during the Rococo and Victorian eras. Floral wallpaper in the former was distinguished by lavishly intricate designs and pastel colours, whereas floral wallpaper in the latter was distinguished by a more sombre, geometric approach. Wallpaper, however, lost its aristocratic air during this time period. Machines could now easily and quickly produce intricate designs at a low, rapid rate with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Wallpaper, no longer a symbol of elite craftsmanship, lost its exclusivity as a token of the wealthy and became a standard among the middle and working classes. It later became a popular literary motif, indicating a character's deception or vanity.

Though William Morris is well-known for the hand-printed, natural designs he created beginning in the 1860s, his popularity during his lifetime was limited to artist friends; his later influence far outweighs any impact on his contemporaries. (Of course, Oscar Wilde despised Morris' designs.) Floral wallpaper became a mundane element of decor during the twentieth century, gradually dwindling in popularity as the larger genre of wallpaper fell out of favour. While geometric wallpaper enjoyed a brief revival during the 1960s and 1970s, by the end of the 1980s, wallpaper writ large—particularly floral and nature-inspired wallpaper—had become a token of suburban dowdiness (recall Freaks and Geeks' kitchen). Wallpapers (especially nature-inspired ones) had moved into an entirely new space with the arrival of the new millennium: computers and phones. Wallpaper has tacky connotations today because it frequently imitates other materials—it appears to remind people of what it is not rather than what it is. Floral prints are frequently weighed down by a stale aura accumulated over centuries. However, this new, distinctly modern wave of prints more closely resembles the look and palette of real plants, which corresponds to the popular interest in "natural living." Yet, at its core, floral wallpapers are united by the same impulse: a desire to unite with the natural world, to keep nature as an essential point of navigation in the contemporary landscape, and to hope that even the most ephemeral imitation carries the power of nature and all that it has come to suggest.