21st April 2016
A few weekends ago, we took a weekend trip to Birmingham, whilst we were there, we were interested to see how Edward Burne-Jones’ legacy has lived on, so many years after his death, in his birth city.
Throughout England, stained glass is a part of the church that draws visitors attention due to their beauty; but they aren’t just in place because of how they look, there is actually a rather important reason for them that dates back to medieval times. Because religion was an important part of daily life, bible stories were told through images in glass. Many people were illiterate and so this was a great visual way to teach the stories within the bible without the congregation needing to be able to read. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory urged artists to paint scenes inspired by the Bible and the saints and morals within to educate the masses, it has been since this that stories have been told this way.
Burne-Jones’ stained glass is no different, and tells stories through his glass as he encouraged and provoked people in their faith journey through his art. We were able to visit a church and see his window for ourselves which was very exciting to see!
We went to the Cathedral of St. Philip, which in 1884, due to a growing congregation, underwent a significant enlargement- with three new windows to be installed, the firm of Morris & Co. was an obvious choice due to Morris’ and Burne-Jones’ recent involvement in the artistic activities within the city. The three windows were each given names, “The Ascension” in 1885, then two years later both, “The Crucifixion” and “The Nativity” and for each piece of art, the firm was paid 200 pounds (at the time, a considerable sum of money- if only we could get such beautiful windows created for us these days for this price!)
In his account book, Burne-Jones wrote about the window, “It was in the year (I was about to say of Grace) 1885 that visiting my native city of Birmingham I was so struck with admiration at one of my work in St Philip’s Church- (May I mention parenthetically that in that very church at the tender age of a few weeks I was enlisted amongst the rank and file of the church militant) struck with admiration at my own work (a naive confession which all artists will condone) I undertook in a moment of enthusiasm to fill the windows on either side with compositions which I hoped and perhaps not unreasonably hoped to make worthy of my former achievement…”
The firm’s best painters were enlisted to help make the commission the best it could be, Bowman and John Henry Dearle. To quote the guide book we purchased in the Cathedral named, “Edward Brune-Jones, Pre-Raphaelite Glass in Birmingham” by Alastair Carew-Cox and William Waters, “These windows show the art of Burne-Jones at its greatest. He utilised traditional images culled from the medieval period onwards for their iconic impact. His use of them however is totally new, seeking to express his deeply felt spirituality through the creation of mood and atmosphere, and like his contemporaries, the symbolist painters in Europe, his intention is to generate similar feelings in the viewer by means of aesthetic devices.”
Burne-Jones is still acknowledged today as one of the great artistic genius’ and more than one hundred years after his death, is still revered as being amongst the greatest of artists in glass. “From being one of the Pre-Raphaelite followers who chose to bring the art from out of the neglect of the centuries before, he took it to new heights of expressive power. His skills and example paved the way forward for 21st century artists to accept stained glass as the major art form that it is today.” It is amazing to think that this man came from a modest home in Birmingham, that we accidentally stumbled upon whilst walking around the streets of his hometown! (Temple Street)
Posted in News by Laura
Happy first day of Spring 🌷what’s your favourite thing about spring? 🌱 Ours is of course all the stunning flowers blooming all around us 🪴 To get 15% off our website to bring some florals indoors, use code; SPRING at checkout on our website 🤍
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Our fat quarters are ideal for quilting or patchwork projects, in all our licensed William Morris designs we also sell them in bundles 🌿 Our website has 15% off everything at the moment with code; SPRING 🌷
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A bit of a different one today, and we’re very amateur so don’t zoom in on our planting too much, but isn’t spring lovely tidying up the greenhouse ready to plant in? 🌱 Next up is getting some tomato plants and might even take on a dahlia or two! 🤍 If you’re a gardener and know how to keep this grape vine alive, do let us know how 😂
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Celebrating International Women’s Day today 🤍 As a female founded and run business, it’s always important for us to look at the women throughout history that have been empowered and made a difference. Few have made such a difference than May Morris, not only an expert in embroidery and design, she ran the embroidery department at her father’s business, Morris & Co. She also founded the Women’s Guild of Arts as the Art Workers Guild did not admit women - like her father was a true pioneer at the time with her talent and activities to progress women’s rights - a remarkable woman indeed 🌿 We were lucky enough to see some stunning original May Morris embroideries at our friends @williammorrissocietyuk - she was a true talent 🧵🪡
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Give us all the spring florals, we’re absolutely ready for the blooms to bloom this spring 🌷🌿 To celebrate, use code: SPRING on our website for 15% off everything (including our beautiful spring sale with exclusive colour ways and different products!) 🌱 Hope you’re all enjoying the sunshine today 🌞
Beautiful William Morris Daisy is on the table today 🌼
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Celebrating World Book day with a coffee meeting over one of our favourite books; our French archive ⚜️ Filled to the brim with beautiful designs, we might have picked a couple to be our new designs! Quilters, you’re going to want to watch this space! 🫶🏻 If anyone’s interested in how we bring a new design to life, let us know we’d be happy to film it for you! 🥰
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A little afternoon tea set up 🧸 Using stunning Willow Bough blue, we thought this is a perfect William Morris kids afternoon tea party 🤍
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Prepping some beautiful blooms 🌷 Got to include our fabulous William Morris tea towels of course 🩷
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What do you think to our new tote bags? ✨ Now in cotton fabrics, we’ve been perfecting the samples for weeks and they got stolen out the office and taken on a cruise by one of our team who thought they’d be the ideal holiday totes 🤍 what do you think? Shall we make these part of our range? ♥️
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Stunning Daisy is on the table 🫶🏻 Daisy was the first design William Morris produced so it’s always such a special one amongst his fans ✨
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Pack a fabric stack order with us ✨ which William Morris design is your fave? 🤎
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Oh Compton we love you! 🧡 All the details within Compton are so stunning, the winding leaves and florals, did you know it was the last design Morris himself before he passed? 🤎
featuring; William Morris Compton, our licensed digitally printed design ✨
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Back in stock alert! 🐇 One of our all time favourite designs is William Morris Brother Rabbit and we’ve just digitally printed it on cotton in the red everyone has always loved so much from our licensed collection 🥰
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📣 We’ve got a big announcement! 📣 We are now digitally printing our fabrics 🎉 Still printed in the United Kingdom (of course!) we always aim to bring you the highest quality, licensed William Morris designs (and exclusive florals but more on that later..) and by digitally printing them we can really focus on the details within the fabric, you can see how crisp all the aspects within the design are here: the little strawberries and the birds are so clear in the design 🍓 Printed onto high quality cotton, we’re so pleased to be able to print Morris designs displaying all the details just as he drew all those years ago 🎨 Timeless designs that when he was printing his designs in Merton Abbey Mill using the Indigo dye technique he’d never have been able to imagine the progress made that we can now digitally print them! 🤍 Strawberry Thief red is now back in stock, such a gorgeous design we adore it ♥️
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To celebrate Valentine’s Day this week, we’ve been looking through some Pre-Raphaelite love quotes including this one from Dante Gabriel Rossetti ♥️ They sure knew how to write poetry, we’ll share more of their beautiful words this week ✨
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Today’s tablescape feels very Valentines pretty 🤍 Beautiful Charlotte Rose is our design from our French archive, so timeless it’s on our table constantly through the year 🌹
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We’re closed for holiday soon! 🪩 From the 21st Jan- 6th Feb we’ll be taking a little break, so make sure your orders are placed before then, or we will send it when we’re back ✨ since we’re treating ourselves, we thought we’d treat you too with 15% off our website with code; MORRIS - valid until we close 🤍
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Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄 We hope you’ve all had a wonderful day ✨
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There’s still time to get your Christmas shopping ticked off! ✨ Free gift wrap on your orders and 10% off everything with code; festive 🎄 Just email us or message us to let us know you’d like us to gift wrap your order ☺️
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Loving cutting beautiful fabric stacks this Christmas! 🎄 A fabric stack is an ideal gift for quilters and crafters in your life, they’ll be able to enjoy using them for their next project ✨
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