The Tree of Life Motif in Arts and Crafts Design

What the records show, and what they do not

The core question for this study was simple: which Morris designs show a tree of life motif, with a source for each. None of the museum records checked identifies a design in that way. That is a finding in itself, and it shapes everything that follows.

It also means the page cannot offer interpretations of the motif, because no interpretation by a named author or institution appears in the records. Under the rules this journal works to, symbolic meaning requires a named source, and none is available here.

To be clear about what can and cannot be answered:

• Which Morris designs show a tree of life motif: no sourced examples were found in the records checked.
• Whether Morris wrote about the tree of life motif: no such text appears in the records.
• Which interpretations of the motif exist, and who proposed them: none were found in the records.
• How Morris sourced and transformed plant patterns generally: this is documented, and covered below.

One documented point about Morris's reference books is worth stating here. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, Morris owned copies of several 16th- and 17th-century herbals, including John Gerarde's The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597).

Researchers looking for the motif in Morris's work should treat any unnamed online claim with caution. The honest position is that the identification work has not been done in the sources available to this page, not that the motif is absent from his work.

Where Morris's plant patterns came from

The Victoria and Albert Museum identifies the main source of the patterns for Morris's wallpapers as plants he had observed since childhood, along with images of plants in illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, woodcuts and historical books.

The museum also records that Morris owned copies of several 16th and 17th century herbals, including John Gerarde's The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes of 1597. These books were working references, not curiosities, and their woodcut conventions shaped how Morris drew foliage and flower clumps.

This documented background is where any study of a tree motif in Morris's work would begin. His plant imagery came from close observation filtered through historical sources, and both halves of that process are recorded by the V&A.

How Morris transformed a historical pattern: the Wandle example

One documented case shows the method clearly. The Victoria and Albert Museum describes the textile design Wandle of 1884 as Morris's most ambitious repeat in terms of scale. According to the V&A, its main source of inspiration was a 16th century Italian brocaded velvet acquired by the South Kensington Museum, later the V&A, in 1883.

The transformation is specific. Morris substituted large stylised chrysanthemum heads for the crowns used in the original pattern. The museum also records that Morris was helping the South Kensington Museum select pieces to purchase in 1883, so he encountered the velvet in the course of that work.

Wandle is not presented here as a tree of life design, and no source describes it as one. It is offered as evidence of process: a historical pattern enters Morris's studio, and he redraws its elements at a new scale with substitutions drawn from his own plant vocabulary. Any tree motif in his work would plausibly have passed through a similar process, but that remains a hypothesis, not a documented fact.

Tree designs in the shop, described with attribution care

The store sells two Arts and Crafts prints with tree imagery, and both are handled with the same caution as the research above. One shows a blossoming tree with birds on a pale blue ground, and another shows a cream flower tree with blue leaves on black. Both are Morris-attributed patterns whose design names are not identified in the records available, so no design name is assigned to either here.

This is deliberate. Naming a Morris design requires a source, and until the identification work is done, the honest description is visual only. If you want to see how these two patterns are presented, they sit in the full collection alongside the rest of the shop's Arts and Crafts prints.

Open questions for researchers

Three questions remain open, and each would need specific evidence to close. The list below is intended as a working agenda rather than a conclusion.

The open questions are:

• Which Morris and Morris and Co. designs show a tree of life motif, each with a museum or published source.
• Whether Morris wrote about the tree of life motif in any lecture, letter or published text.
• Which interpretations of the motif exist in the literature, and which named authors proposed them.

Related motifs with better documentation

Where the tree of life motif lacks sourced examples in the records checked, animal and bird life in Morris's work is better served. The parent guide to birds in Morris designs lists species and the designs they appear in, each with a source, and shows what a fully documented motif study looks like.

For the historic sources behind paired birds in the woven textiles, see the guide to paired birds and their sources. And because not every creature in the firm's patterns came from Morris's own hand, a closer look at Webb's birds and animals explains Philip Webb's role in drawing them.