Wallpaper is used in interior decoration to cover the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" to help cover uneven surfaces and minor wall defects, "textured", plain with a regular repeating pattern design, or with a single non-repeating large design carried over a set of sheets.
Modern wallpaper is made in long rolls which are hung vertically on a wall. Patterned wallpapers are designed so that the pattern "repeats", and thus pieces cut from the same roll can be hung next to each other so as to continue the pattern without it being easy to see where the join between two pieces occurs. In the case of large complex patterns of images this is normally achieved by starting the second piece halfway into the length of the repeat, so that if the pattern going down the roll repeats after 24 inches, the next piece sideways is cut from the roll to begin 12 inches down the pattern from the first. The number of times the pattern repeats horizontally across a roll does not matter for this purpose. A single pattern can be issued in several different colorways.
History
The traditional hand-blocking technique, France in 1877
The main historical techniques are: hand-painting, woodblock printing (overall the most common), stencilling, and various types of machine-printing. The first three all date back to before 1700.[1]
Wallpaper, using the printmaking technique of woodcut, gained popularity in Renaissance Europe amongst the emerging gentry. The social elite continued to hang large tapestries on the walls of their homes, as they had in the Middle Ages. These tapestries added color to the room as well as providing an insulating layer between the stone walls and the room, thus retaining heat in the room. However, tapestries were extremely expensive and so only the very rich could afford them. Less well-off members of the elite, unable to buy tapestries due either to prices or wars preventing international trade, turned to wallpaper to brighten up their rooms.
Early wallpaper featured scenes similar to those depicted on tapestries, and large sheets of the paper were sometimes hung loosely on the walls, in the style of tapestries, and sometimes pasted as today. Prints were very often pasted to walls, instead of being framed and hung, and the largest sizes of prints, which came in several sheets, were probably mainly intended to be pasted to walls. Some important artists made such pieces - notably Albrecht Dürer, who worked on both large picture prints and also ornament prints - intended for wall-hanging. The largest picture print was The Triumphal Arch commissioned by the Holy Roman EmperorMaximilian I and completed in 1515. This measured a colossal 3.57 by 2.95 metres, made up of 192 sheets, and was printed in a first edition of 700 copies, intended to be hung in palaces and, in particular, town halls, after hand-coloring.
Very few samples of the earliest repeating pattern wallpapers survive, but there are a large number of old master prints, often in engraving of repeating or repeatable decorative patterns. These are called ornament prints and were intended as models for wallpaper makers, among other uses.
England and France were leaders in European wallpaper manufacturing. Among the earliest known samples is one found on a wall from England and is printed on the back of a London proclamation of 1509. It became very popular in England following Henry VIII's excommunication from the Catholic Church - English aristocrats had always imported tapestries from Flanders and Arras, but Henry VIII's split with the Catholic Church had resulted in a fall in trade with Europe. Without any tapestry manufacturers in England, English gentry and aristocracy alike turned to wallpaper.
During the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell, the manufacture of wallpaper, seen as a frivolous item by the Puritan government, was halted. Following the Restoration of Charles II, wealthy people across England began demanding wallpaper again - Cromwell's Puritan regime had imposed a repressive and restrictive culture on the population, and following his death, wealthy people began purchasing comfortable domestic items which had been banned under the Puritan state.
18th century
Hand-painted Chinese wallpaper showing a funeral procession, made for the European market, c.1780
In 1712, during the reign of Queen Anne, a wallpaper tax was introduced which was not abolished until 1836. By the mid-eighteenth century, Britain was the leading wallpaper manufacturer in Europe, exporting vast quantities to Europe in addition to selling on the middle-class British market. However this trade was seriously disrupted in 1755 by the Seven Years' War and later the Napoleonic Wars, and by a heavy level of duty on imports to France.
In 1748 the British Ambassador to Paris decorated his salon with blue flock wallpaper, which then became very fashionable there. In the 1760s the French manufacturer Jean-Baptiste Réveillon hired designers working in silk and tapestry to produce some of the most subtle and luxurious wallpaper ever made. His sky blue wallpaper with fleurs-de-lys was used in 1783 on the first balloons by the Montgolfier brothers.[1] The landscape painter Jean-Baptiste Pillement discovered in 1763 a method to use fast colours.
Hand-blocked wallpapers like these use hand-carved blocks and by the 18th century designs include panoramic views of antique architecture, exotic landscapes and pastoral subjects, as well as repeating patterns of stylized flowers, people and animals.
In 1785 Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf had invented the first machine for printing coloured tints on sheets of wallpaper. In 1799 Louis-Nicolas Robert patented a machine to produce continuous lengths of paper, the forerunner of the Fourdrinier machine. This ability to produce continuous lengths of wallpaper now offered the prospect of novel designs and nice tints being widely displayed in drawing rooms across Europe.
Wallpaper manufacturers active in England in the 18th century included John Baptist Jackson[1] and John Sherringham.[2] Among the firms established in 18th-century America: J. F. Bumstead & Co. (Boston), William Poyntell (Philadelphia), John Rugar (New York).[1]
High-quality wallpaper made in China became available from the later part of the 17th century; this was entirely handpainted and very expensive. It can still be seen in rooms in palaces and grand houses including Nymphenburg Palace, Łazienki Palace, Chatsworth House, Temple Newsam, Broughton Castle, Lissan House, and Erddig. It was made up to 1.2 metres wide. English, French and German manufacturers imitated it, usually beginning with a printed outline which was coloured in by hand, a technique sometimes also used in later Chinese papers.
France and America
Towards the end of the 18th century the fashion for scenic wallpaper revived in both America and France, leading to some enormous panoramas, like the 1804 20 strip wide panorama, Sauvages de la Mer du Pacifique (Savages of the Pacific), designed by the artist Jean-Gabriel Charvet for the French manufacturer Joseph Dufour et Cie showing the Voyages of Captain Cook.[3] This famous so-called "papier peint" wallpaper is still in situ in Ham House, Peabody, Massachusetts.[4] It was the largest panoramic wallpaper of its time, and marked the burgeoning of a French industry in panoramic wallpapers. Dufour realized almost immediate success from the sale of these papers and enjoyed a lively trade with America. The Neoclassical style currently in favour worked well in houses of the Federal period with Charvet's elegant designs. Like most 18th-century wallpapers, the panorama was designed to be hung above a dado.
'Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique', panels 1-10 of woodblock printed wallpaper designed by Jean-Gabriel Charvet and manufactured by Joseph Dufour
Among the firms begun in France in the 19th century: Desfossé & Karth.[1] In the United States: John Bellrose, Blanchard & Curry, Howell Brothers, Longstreth & Sons, Isaac Pugh in Philadelphia; Bigelow, Hayden & Co. in Massachusetts; Christy & Constant, A. Harwood, R. Prince in New York.[6]
The earliest known American wallpaper sample book that has survived to present day resides in the collection of Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA. It was produced by the firm Janes & Bolles of Hartford, Connecticut, between 1821 and 1828.[7]
During the Napoleonic Wars, trade between Europe and Britain evaporated, resulting in the gradual decline of the wallpaper industry in Britain. However, the end of the war saw a massive demand in Europe for British goods which had been inaccessible during the wars, including cheap, colourful wallpaper. The development of steam-powered printing presses in Britain in 1813 allowed manufacturers to mass-produce wallpaper, reducing its price and so making it affordable to working-class people. Wallpaper enjoyed a huge boom in popularity in the nineteenth century, seen as a cheap and very effective way of brightening up cramped and dark rooms in working-class areas. It became almost the norm in most areas of middle-class homes, but remained relatively little used in public buildings and offices, with patterns generally being avoided in such locations. In the latter half of the century Lincrusta and Anaglypta, not strictly wallpapers, became popular competitors, especially below a dado rail. They could be painted and washed, and were a good deal tougher, though also more expensive.
By the early twentieth century wallpaper had established itself as one of the most popular household items across the Western world. Manufacturers in the USA included Sears;[10] designers included Andy Warhol.[11] Wallpaper has gone in and out of fashion since about 1930, but the overall trend has been for wallpaper-type patterned wallcoverings to lose ground to plain painted walls.
21st century
In the early 21st century wallpaper evolved into a lighting feature, enhancing the mood and the ambience through lights and crystals. Meystyle, a London-based company, invented LED-incorporated wallpaper.[12] The development of digital printing allows designers to break the mould and combine new technology and art to bring wallpaper to a new level of popularity.[13]
Historical collections
Historical examples of wallpaper are preserved by cultural institutions such as the Deutsches Tapetenmuseum (Kassel) in Germany;[14] the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris) and Musée du Papier Peint (Rixheim) in France;[1] the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in the UK;[15] the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt,[16] Historic New England,[17] Metropolitan Museum of Art,[18] U.S. National Park Service,[19][20] and Winterthur[21] in the USA. Original designs by William Morris and other English wallpaper companies are held by Walker Greenbank.
Types and sizes
Wallpaper on the wall of an apartment
In terms of methods of creation, wallpaper types include painted wallpaper, hand-printed blockwood wallpaper, hand-printed stencil wallpaper, machine-printed wallpaper, and flock wallpaper.[1]
Modern wallcoverings are diverse, and what is described as wallpaper may no longer actually be made from paper. Two of the most common factory trimmed sizes of wallpaper are referred to as "American" and "European" rolled goods. American rolled goods are 27 inches (69cm) by 27 feet (8.2m) in length. European rolled goods are 52 centimetres (20in) wide by 10 metres (33ft) in length,[22] approximately 5.2 square metres (56sqft). Most wallpaper borders are sold by length and with a wide range of widths therefore surface area is not applicable, although some may require trimming.
The most common wall covering for residential use and generally the most economical is prepasted vinyl coated paper, commonly called "strippable" which can be misleading. Cloth backed vinyl is fairly common and durable. Lighter vinyls are easier to handle and hang. Paper backed vinyls are generally more expensive, significantly more difficult to hang, and can be found in wider untrimmed widths. Foil wallpaper generally has paper backing and can (exceptionally) be up to 36 inches (91cm) wide, and be very difficult to handle and hang. Textile wallpapers include silks, linens, grass cloths, strings, rattan, and actual impressed leaves. There are acoustical wall carpets to reduce sound. Customized wallcoverings are available at high prices and most often have minimum roll orders.
Solid vinyl with a cloth backing is the most common commercial wallcovering [citation needed] and comes from the factory as untrimmed at 54 inches (140cm) approximately, to be overlapped and double cut by the installer. This same type can be pre-trimmed at the factory to 27 inches (69cm) approximately.
Modern developments
Custom printing
New digital inkjet printing technologies using ultraviolet (UV) cured inks are being used for custom wallpaper production. Very small runs can be made, even a single wall. Photographs or digital art are output onto blank wallpaper material. Typical installations are corporate lobbies, restaurants, athletic facilities, and home interiors. This gives a designer the ability to give a space the exact look and feel desired.
High-tech
New types of wallpaper under development or entering the market in the early 21st century include wallpaper that blocks certain mobile phone and WiFi signals, in the interest of privacy. The wallpaper is coated with a silver ink which forms crystals that block outgoing signals.[23]
Seismic
In 2012 scientists at the Institute of Solid Construction and Construction Material Technology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology announced that they had developed a wallpaper that can help keep a masonry wall from failing in an earthquake. The wallpaper uses glass fibre reinforcement in several directions and a special adhesive which forms a strong bond with the masonry when dry.[24]
As a means of artistic expression
Tsang Kin-Wah, one of Hong Kong's best-known painters,[25] creates large-scale wallpaper installations that evoke the floral designs of William Morris in a style that has become known as word-art installation.[26]
Installation
Like paint, wallpaper requires proper surface preparation before application. Additionally wallpaper is not suitable for all areas. For example, bathroom wallpaper may deteriorate rapidly due to excessive steam (if is not sealed with a specific varnish). Proper preparation includes the repair of any defects in the drywall or plaster and the removal of loose material or old adhesives. For a better finish with thinner papers and poorer quality walls the wall can be cross-lined (horizontally) with lining paper first. Accurate room measurements (length, width, and height) along with number of window and door openings is essential for ordering wallpaper. Large drops, or repeats, in a pattern can be cut and hung more economically by working from alternating rolls of paper.[27]
After pre-pasted wallpaper is moistened, or dry wallpaper is coated with wet paste, the wet surface is folded onto itself and left for a few minutes to activate the glue, which is called "booking wallpaper."[28]
Besides conventional installation on interior walls and ceilings, wallpapers have been deployed as decorative covering for hatboxes, bandboxes, books, shelves, and window-shades.[29]
The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foliate ornament, used in the Islamic world, typically using leaves, derived from stylised half-palmettes, which were combined with spiralling stems". It usually consists of a single design which can be 'tiled' or seamlessly repeated as many times as desired. Within the very wide range of Eurasian decorative art that includes motifs matching this basic definition, the term "arabesque" is used consistently as a technical term by art historians to describe only elements of the decoration found in two phases: Islamic art from about the 9th century onwards, and European decorative art from the Renaissance onwards. Interlace and scroll decoration are terms used for most other types of similar patterns.
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Normally it is used to create images rather than patterns. Tapestry is relatively fragile, and difficult to make, so most historical pieces are intended to hang vertically on a wall, or sometimes horizontally over a piece of furniture such as a table or bed. Some periods made smaller pieces, often long and narrow and used as borders for other textiles. Most weavers use a natural warp thread, such as wool, linen, or cotton. The weft threads are usually wool or cotton but may include silk, gold, silver, or other alternatives.
Chintz is a woodblock printed, painted, stained or glazed calico textile that originated in Golconda in the 16th century. The cloth is printed with designs featuring flowers and other patterns in different colours, typically on a light, plain background.
Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (1861–1875) was a furnishings and decorative arts manufacturer and retailer founded by the artist and designer William Morris with friends from the Pre-Raphaelites. With its successor Morris & Co. (1875–1940) the firm's medieval-inspired aesthetic and respect for hand-craftsmanship and traditional textile arts had a profound influence on the decoration of churches and houses into the early 20th century.
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey was an English architect and furniture and textile designer. Voysey's early work was as a designer of wallpapers, fabrics and furnishings in a Arts and Crafts style and he made important contribution to the Modern Style, and was recognized by the seminal The Studio magazine. He is renowned as the architect of several country houses.
Millefleur, millefleurs or mille-fleur refers to a background style of many different small flowers and plants, usually shown on a green ground, as though growing in grass. It is essentially restricted to European tapestry during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, from about 1400 to 1550, but mainly about 1480–1520. The style had a notable revival by Morris & Co. in 19th century England, being used on original tapestry designs, as well as illustrations from his Kelmscott Press publications. The millefleur style differs from many other styles of floral decoration, such as the arabesque, in that many different sorts of individual plants are shown, and there is no regular pattern. The plants fill the field without connecting or significantly overlapping. In that it also differs from the plant and floral decoration of Gothic page borders in illuminated manuscripts.
Textile printing is the process of applying color to fabric in definite patterns or designs. In properly printed fabrics the colour is bonded with the fibre, so as to resist washing and friction. Textile printing is related to dyeing but in dyeing properly the whole fabric is uniformly covered with one colour, whereas in printing one or more colours are applied to it in certain parts only, and in sharply defined patterns.
Textile design, also known as textile geometry, is the creative and technical process by which thread or yarn fibers are interlaced to form a piece of cloth or fabric, which is subsequently printed upon or otherwise adorned. Textile design is further broken down into three major disciplines: printed textile design, woven textile design, and mixed media textile design. Each uses different methods to produce a fabric for variable uses and markets. Textile design as an industry is involved in other disciplines such as fashion, interior design, and fine arts.
Anaglypta is a range of paintable textured wallcoverings made from paper or vinyl. It is produced on traditional paper and paste-the-wall substrates. Anaglypta is often compared to Lincrusta which is made from gelled paste of linseed oil and wood flour. Lincrusta is considered to be a heavier version but more durable than Anaglypta.
Victorian decorative arts refers to the style of decorative arts during the Victorian era. Victorian design is widely viewed as having indulged in a grand excess of ornament. The Victorian era is known for its interpretation and eclectic revival of historic styles mixed with the introduction of Asian and Middle Eastern influences in furniture, fittings, and interior decoration. The Arts and Crafts movement, the aesthetic movement, Anglo-Japanese style, and Art Nouveau style have their beginnings in the late Victorian era and gothic period.
Jean-Baptiste Réveillon (1725–1811) was a French wallpaper manufacturer. In 1789 Réveillon made a statement on the price of bread that was misinterpreted by the Parisian populace as advocating lower wages. He fled France after his home and his wallpaper factory were attacked and set on fire in what came to be known as the Reveillon riot. In 1791 he leased his business premises to the wallpaper manufacturer Jacquemart & Bérnard.
John Henry Dearle was a British textile and stained-glass designer trained by the artist and craftsman William Morris who was much influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Dearle designed many of the later wallpapers and textiles released by Morris & Co., and contributed background and foliage patterns to tapestry designs featuring figures by Edward Burne-Jones and others. Beginning in his teens as a shop assistant and then design apprentice, Dearle rose to become Morris & Co.'s chief designer by 1890, creating designs for tapestries, embroidery, wallpapers, woven and printed textiles, stained glass, and carpets. Following Morris's death in 1896, Dearle was appointed Art Director of the firm, and became its principal stained glass designer on the death of Burne-Jones in 1898.
Jean-Gabriel Charvet (1750–1829), also known as Jean Gabriel Charvet, was a French painter, designer and draftsman who was born in Serrières, Ardèche, France. He studied at the École de Dessin in Lyon under the French artist Donat Nonnotte (1708–1785) and worked as a designer for the French wallpaper manufacturer Joseph Dufour et Cie (1752–1827) of Mâcon, France. In 1773, Charvet travelled to Guadeloupe in the Caribbean on business for his uncle, and stayed for four years producing many studies of native flora and fauna, as well as landscapes. By 1785, he had established a drawing school in Annonay, south of Lyon. Annonay had been a papermaking region since the Sixteenth Century.
Arthur et Robert was a Paris-based wallpaper manufacturer active during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Joseph Dufour et Cie, founded in 1797 by Joseph and Pierre Dufour, was a French painted wallpaper and fabrics manufacturer located in Mâcon, France.
Frescography is a method for producing murals digitally on paper, canvas, glass or tiles, invented in 1998 by German muralist Rainer Maria Latzke. Frescography uses CAM and digital printing methods to create murals.
Leather wallpaper is a type of wallpaper used in various styles for wall covering. It is often referred to as wrought leather. It is often gilded, painted and decorated. Leather was used to cover and decorate sections of walls in the houses of the rich, and some public buildings. Leather is pliable and could be decorated in various ways.
China painting, or porcelain painting, is the decoration of glazed porcelain objects such as plates, bowls, vases or statues. The body of the object may be hard-paste porcelain, developed in China in the 7th or 8th century, or soft-paste porcelain, developed in 18th-century Europe. The broader term ceramic painting includes painted decoration on lead-glazed earthenware such as creamware or tin-glazed pottery such as maiolica or faience.
The British literary figure and designer William Morris (1834-1896), a founder of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, was especially known for his wallpaper designs. These were created for the firm he founded with his partners in 1861, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company, and later for Morris and Company. He created fifty different block-printed wallpapers, all with intricate, stylised patterns based on nature, particularly upon the native flowers and plants of Britain. His wallpapers and textile designs had a major effect on British interior designs, and then upon the subsequent Art Nouveau movement in Europe and the United States.
William Morris (1834-1898), a founder of the British Arts and Crafts movement, sought to restore the prestige and methods of hand-made crafts, including textiles, in opposition to the 19th century tendency toward factory-produced textiles. With this goal in mind, he created his own workshop and designed dozens of patterns for hand-produced woven and printed cloth, upholstery, and other textiles.
↑ Bulletin of the City Art Museum of St. Louis, Vol. 15, No. 2, 1930
↑ Joseph Dufour (1804), Les sauvages de la mer Pacifique, tableau pour décoration en papier peint, A Macon [France?]: De l'Imprimerie de Moiroux, rue franche, ISBN0665141149, OL23705116M, 0665141149
↑ Horace H. F. Jayne. Captain Cook Wallpaper. Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum, Vol. 17, No. 69 (Oct., 1921)
↑ R. P. Emlen: ‘Imagining America in 1834: Zuber's Scenic Wallpaper "Vues d'Amérique du Nord"’, Winterthur Port., xxxii (Summer–Aug 1997)
↑ Decorator and Furnisher, Vol. 16, No. 6 (Sep., 1890)
↑ Sugden, A.V, Potters of Darwen 1839–1939 a century of wallpaper printing by machinery. 1939
↑ Official descriptive and illustrated catalogue, Great exhibition of the works of industry of all nations, London: Spicer Brothers, 1851, OCLC1044640, OL6962338M
↑ Patricia Hamm and James Hamm. The Removal and Conservation Treatment of a Scenic Wallpaper, "Paysage à Chasses," from the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site. Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Vol. 20, No. 2, Conservation of Historic Wallpaper (Spring, 1981)
↑ Thomas K. McClintock. The In situ Treatment of the Wallpaper in the Study of the Longfellow National Historic Site. Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Vol. 20, No. 2, Conservation of Historic Wallpaper (Spring, 1981)
↑ Horace L. Hotchkiss, Jr. Wallpaper from the Shop of William Poyntell. Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 4 (1968)
↑ Peter Leggatt and Nathan Brooker (February 22, 2013). "The new role of wallpaper". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2022-12-10. Retrieved March 3, 2013.
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