EXHIBITION. “Diseño, seda y flores”

On the occasion of the World Capital of Design, held by the city of Valencia in 2022, the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia proposes a journey through a part of its collections closely linked to pre-industrial and industrial design: flowers applied to fabrics. Through two sections with a certain chronological progression, the cultural bases that encouraged the fabulous emergence of floral design in the nineteenth century are analyzed. Flowers, as a more or less developed pictorial theme, have their origins in the consolidation of still life as a distinct pictorial genre during the seventeenth century. From a deeper scientific knowledge of nature, painters like Van der Hamen popularized the prominence of the different species in the easel painting of the Baroque. In Valencia, and in other cities of great textile tradition and, in particular, silk, flowers were spilled since ancient times by the creations of the flourishing manufacturing industry from the late Middle Ages, as can be seen in the multitude of brocades and embroideries that populate the many Gothic altarpieces preserved in the Museum. However, it was not until the 18th century when, through the School of Flowers and Ornaments, the close relationship between art and textile design was institutionalized, blurring the boundaries between artist and craftsman.

In 1778 the Sala de Flores y Ornatos was created within the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de València with the aim of forming a specialized branch of painters who were able to supply original designs to the Valencian silk industry in order to make it competitive with its European counterparts. In 1784 the Room became a School, equaling in rank and endowment to the rest of the sections of the Academy and raising, in this way, the status of its protagonists. From the work of brilliant painters such as Benito Espinós, José Romá or Felipe Parra came fantastic easel paintings in which the floral species known through prints or directly from nature are described in detail. From here, these great painters moved on to paper and cardboard in order to translate the naturalistic representation of flowers with a three-dimensional character into the two dimensions necessary for weaving. Patterns, samples and drawings thus provided, thanks to the genius and skill of their artist designers, a rich panoply of original models ready to be transferred to silk.