Living in London for a year and a half changed me in many ways - most obviously as a scholar, in that I earned my Master of Arts degree in Eighteenth-Century Studies at King's College London. Yet subtle, far less apparent changes took root. For example, my love of wallpaper.
Every room I slept in, seemingly, was wallpapered. I cannot recall a single British bedroom that did not use wallpaper to make a decorative statement. In my long-term residence, Abbey Lodge Hotel in Ealing, the floral wallpaper was simple but effective. When my late mother Facetimed with me, she commented: "Oh, I see some wallpaper. Looks very English." Her powers of observation ignited my own and I began to notice all the hotels, inns, restaurants, etc. that used wallpaper rather than paint to make a statement.
"Wallpaper printing techniques include surface printing, gravure printing, silk screen-printing, rotary printing, and digital printing. Wallpaper is made in long rolls, which are hung vertically on a wall," according to Wikipedia. Wallpaper originated in ancient China, with the Chinese court official Ts'ai Lun inventing papermaking from textile scraps in 105 A.D. In England and France wallpaper came into fashion as long ago as the early 1500s. It became popular in England following Henry VIII's excommunication from the Catholic Church, which adversely affected trade. So English gentry and aristocracy turned to manufacturing their own wallpaper.
As Americans tried to mimic all things British during the Victorian Era, wallpaper created a style statement similar to what was enjoyed abroad. William Morris led the nineteenth century's Arts and Crafts movement - which was a return to handmade goods following disillusionment with manufactured goods - and which birthed elaborate patterns still reproduced today. Morris's company produced furniture, textiles and jewelry as well as printed wallpaper.
Images: Top: By G. Bruno, gravure Perot - https://archive.org/details/letourdelafrance00brunuoft Univ. of Toronto, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21278345
2. An example of William Morris wallpaper, an artichoke: By Version of en.wikipedia with white borders removed; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2408693
3.A more modern take on wallpaper: By ALIREZA.AZIZMAND - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70518691
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