Crimson & Teal & Lavender

Crimson is the Strawberry Thief bird — the deep vivid crimson of the thrushes (thrushes with red-to-crimson breasts) in Morris's most celebrated printed textile design, 'Strawberry Thief' (1883 — designed by William Morris; printed by Thomas Wardle at the Leek dyeworks using the indigo-discharge printing technique; full pattern repeat: approximately 45 cm × 91 cm). The 'Strawberry Thief' design: Morris's most reproduced textile design (it remains in continuous production to the present day, through Morris & Co., which still operates under that name and still produces Morris's original designs), depicting a repeating pattern of thrushes stealing strawberries (Morris himself planted strawberries at his country house, Kelmscott Manor, in Oxfordshire, and reportedly was regularly frustrated by thrushes stealing his strawberries — the pattern is autobiographical). The deep vivid crimson of the thrush elements: in the original 'Strawberry Thief' design, the birds are depicted with their characteristic brick-to-deep-crimson breast plumage (the song thrush — Turdus philomelos — and the mistle thrush — Turdus viscivorus — the two most common British thrush species, both characterized by white-to-buff bellies with brown spotting rather than red breasts; but Morris may have conflated thrushes with redstarts — Phoenicurus phoenicurus — the small migratory passerine with a vivid orange-to-crimson tail and breast — or with the robin — Erithacus rubecula — the most iconic British bird with its vivid orange-red breast). The crimson-to-deep-red of the strawberry fruits themselves (Fragaria × ananassa — the garden strawberry — the most widely cultivated soft fruit in Britain, with vivid crimson-to-red fruits) is also the dominant warm color in the design. Teal is the discharge ground — the dark vivid teal of the indigo-discharge printed background of Morris's most elaborate textile designs. The indigo-discharge printing technique: this was one of the most technically demanding textile printing processes of the Victorian era — the entire cloth was first dyed to a deep indigo blue-to-teal (the most uniform and most deeply saturated possible) using the standard indigo vat process; then the design was printed onto the dyed cloth using a chemical reducing agent (bleach — typically sodium or potassium hydrosulphite, a strong reducing agent) that locally 'discharged' (decolorized) the indigo in the printed areas, creating the pale or white design elements against the indigo-teal ground. The specific teal of the Morris indigo-discharge ground: because Morris's textiles were dyed with natural indigo (rather than the synthetic indigo that became available commercially from 1897), the ground color has a specific blue-to-teal quality — very dark, very vivid, with a slight green shift — that perfectly complements the warm crimson-to-red of the bird and strawberry elements. Lavender is the acanthus floral — the pale delicate lavender of the floral elements in Morris's most complex wallpaper and textile designs. Morris's 'Acanthus' (1875 — a wallpaper design; then adapted as a woven textile, 1879): one of Morris's most ambitious and most technically complex designs, featuring a dense, interlocking pattern of stylized acanthus leaves (the acanthus motif — from the plant Acanthus mollis — was one of the most widely used ornamental motifs in Western art since ancient Greece, used in the capitals of Corinthian columns, in Byzantine mosaics, and throughout the ornamental tradition that Morris studied) in deep blue-green and pale lavender-to-lilac. The pale lavender of Morris's floral elements: in his most subtle and most botanically precise designs, Morris used a specific pale lavender-to-lilac for certain flowers — particularly the delicate florets of acanthus, the pale blooms of honesty (Lunaria annua — moonwort — also called 'honesty plant' for its translucent seed pods), and the soft lavender of certain wild iris varieties (Iris pseudacorus — the yellow flag iris of British waterways — and Iris versicolor) that he painted from direct observation at Kelmscott.