Islam, the West and the Rest

The fact that Islamic culture has influenced the West is now not only widely accepted but actively acknowledged in the cultural establishment of western institutions . Let us start with the lesser known William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, north-east London: this may not be on the museum-goer’s canonical beaten track but as the recent exhibition about the British designer’s collection of Islamic art demonstrated, Morris derived plenty of inspiration from it to inform his own work . Once the home of the Morris family, this grade II listed Georgian villa features a prominent pair of semi-circular bays in the midst of which is an elegant porch flanked by Corinthian columns. Fronting an impressive garden, the present house was known as “The Winns” after a water house and moat thought to date back to the 15th century—not a bad record for a man whose fixation with historicism took him to all kinds of recreations of the days of yore, including hand dyeing, embroidery, and even founding his own printing press (Kelmscott Press) .

With his full beard and mane of dark unruly hair, William Morris (1834- 96) was no typical Victorian gentleman . After reading Classics at Oxford, he started hanging out with Pre-Raphaelite artists such as Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, becoming increasingly interested in Medievalism and the decorative arts . It seems that Morris’s fascination with Middle Eastern art may in part have stemmed from his visits to Vincent J . Robinson’s carpet shop on Wigmore Street . Robinson was none other than the man who purchased the Ardabil Carpet, now at the V&A but originally commissioned by Shah Tahmasp and produced in 1539/40 for the Shah’s ancestral shrine . Upon setting eyes on it, Morris commented: ‘I saw yesterday a piece of ancient Persian [sic] time of Shah Abbas (our Elizabeth’s time) that firmly threw me on my back: I had no idea that such wonders could be done in carpets .’ Furthermore, he deemed it of such ‘singular perfection’ and ‘logically and consistently beautiful’ adding that Persian carpets were endowed with ‘intellectualism.’