“Toile de Jouy: Relationships of Power and Hierarchy in Connection to Staffage and Consumerism"
The height of the 18th century into the early 20th was filled with industrial progress and social change. Textile factories and other manufacturers in fields of design and fashion witnessed the birth of the middle class and a great attempt of redefining stratified lines of wealth and culture. The beginnings of this modernized and interconnected world can be traced through the production and consumption of refined objects and art like toile. In this paper, my aim is to dissect a particular piece of this era through a historical, social, and economic lens.
Toile, short for ‘Toile de Jouy’, derives from the Oberkampf factory at Jouy-en-Josas near Versailles. Beginning in 1760, this prestigious print had been originally created through copperplate techniques in Ireland and England but moved to a perfected level of standardization and skill by the time it reached France. Typical designs ranged from Mythology to historical subjects, chinoiserie, and pastoral fantasies. (Figure 1). Traditionally printed in red, blue, or sepia, these fabrics presented various colors sourced from vegetable dyes and woad to indigo. Due to their strong pictorial and intricately etched drawings, moste toile was intended to be seen flat rather than draped or folded. After this, you see many of these images upholstered or stretched on walls. In the following pages, I will follow the historical progression of toile from Ireland and England to France and finally its place in the American market.
GREAT BRITAIN
British Textile History
Beginning with a combined history of Great Britain and its textile production, I will be analyzing the Georgian Period (1714-1830) that lasted a span of approximately 100 years leading up to the British Industrial Revolution. This era, due to its connection to consumerism, has been called the ‘age of manufacturing’ as it was filled with tremendous advances in transportation and technology. Cities like London that once housed cobblers, markets, and taverns akin to most preindustrial nations transformed into a juxtaposed network that contained images of the ‘old’ and ‘crafted’ alongside wealthy sectors and specialty shops filled with riches and refined tastes. The opportunity for the British gentry and aristocracy to participate within a new economy stratified by class had arrived. (Figure 2). Dr. Matthew White, a specialist of urbanization in London, describes the birth of storefront windows in these sectors as ‘a world of gold and silver; plates, pearls, and gems… home manufactures of the most exquisite taste’. Language evoking imagery of royalty and preference for the ‘finer things’ rather than its foil, the market, that would have been occupied by almost all the workers and craftsmen of the time.
Within these newly derived spaces, would have been the wealth of British textiles ranging from muslin and chintzes to calicoes vogue of the time. Just like the other refined objects, textiles also received a new makeover through modernization and colonization. Almost all these patterns, which were traditionally created through block printing, were reinvented by the Irish invention of copper plate printing in 1752 and the first major improvements in spinning-- the spinning Jenny-- in 1764. Invented by the artisan Thomas Hargreaves, the exponential impact of his creation allowed him to see its fire-like spread, and upon his death, 20,000 spinning jennies were in use. Adding to the growing force that was the textile industry, was the transAtlantic slave trade in America after the Revolution in 1783. These newly erected plantations ran by African slaves supplied cotton to the British Empire allowing the small country to produce approximately half the world’s cotton cloth without growing it themselves. The vast majority of not just textiles, but all material wealth consumed by the aristocracy, had connections to slaves in North America, South America, and the Caribbean. By the end of the 1800s, the British empire was sourcing its cotton from not only the Americas, but its furthest reaches in Egypt and India.
British Toile Influences
The vast and expanding British Empire, while unparalleled in their influence and unlimited in their sourcing of material, selected specific portrayals and parallels in their toile work. And due to the regional history of landscape painting, staffage seems important in its connection to the peasants portrayed in these decorative objects and textiles. Staffage, referring to the human and animal figures that occupy larger landscape paintings, exist as a means to hint at historical and biblical significance in the same ways that toile functions. (Figure 3). Compared to the depictions of people in portraits or genre paintings, staffage representation plays a complementary role in the larger subject of the painting ranging from decoration to contextual clues.
Staffage appeared in Dutch and Flemish religious paintings found in the houses of the wealthy merchants and aristocrats during the early 1700s. These landscapes, depicting themes of divine grandeur held small indications of moralistic codes and allegorical interpretation through the small anonymous bodies occupying the lower sections of painted works. Compounded by the scale of the figures and the high perspective, viewers of these paintings are placed on a literal pedestal with the likes of royalty or God. Other countries in northern Europe began adopting similar symbolic additions to the extent of hiring Dutch artists to execute the particularly developed style. Like actors on a grand stage, a plot and evolution transformed the religious staffage figures into more secular representations to attract and cater to wider audiences.
These paintings were not a sole influence upon the production of toile, but is instead an example of a contemporary relationship between a viewer and a product (in this case, a painting). A case of taking a body, even though illusionistic, and using it as a tool. As characteristic of colonialist thought; the act of taking, appropriating, and profiting from use of a ‘lesser’ body is seen just as literally as slavery as it is in a microaggression of puppeteering drawn peasant bodies. In an essay of engraving published in 1754, Philips points out the relationship of British gentry purchasing engraved prints of romanticized and exotified peoples and artworks from the furthest reaches of the empire. Willing to pay, the aristocracy and emerging bourgeois culture who could not purchase objects or visit other countries themselves compromised with illustrated and often invented depictions to take their place.
British Morals and Refinement
Industrial and technological changes were not the only reasons for change in consumer habits. Much of the acceleration was due to the newly emerging gentry and their need to build a class identification relating to both the aristocracy and peasants. Woolen garments that once covered most peoples living in Great Britain were diversified and soon replaced by cheaper, printed cotton. When first imported from India, the select owners of such wealth were few and coveted, but after the explosion of textile factories located in northern England cotton cloth became more accessible and affordable. And what was once exclusively dyed with natural and abundant products was replaced by more vibrant dyes due to cotton’s ability to hold and maintain higher levels of saturated and varied color through cleaning. This also made the use comparatively hygienic.
The transmission of ‘wealthy’ and ‘refined’ items to the new middle class, like clothing, was matched by other items and household goods. Where laborers and merchants once ate out of wooden bowls, dining on Wedgwood porcelain became a staple. Dining sets traditionally made of pewter turned to valuable silver. And while clothing was historically the most expensive item in a person’s possession, more displays of wealth slowly made their way into the homes of the aristocracy. Due to the cost and significance of a person's clothing, the boutiques and shops of industrial London began to create shopping experiences to match the importance of the items themselves. This production was so grand it created an almost theatrical atmosphere for customers to both handle and experience the merchandise. This custom, arising from industrial London, marks the genesis of the age of mass consumption. The practice of mass consumerism, is a practice rooted in cultural ignorance, reductionism, appropriation, the support of child labor, the exploitation of female workers, and the institution of slavery (specifically the transatlantic slave trade). This will continue to be shown as we examine the history of the consumption of refined objects and art.
Labor in British Textile Production
Through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the often cloudy and damp Britain produced textiles through the wool of one of their most abundant resources-- sheep. With a compatible climate, flax also grew in abundance, which combined with the wool created the ‘linsey-woolsey’ worn by royalty and the wealthy. It wasn’t until the flight of French Protestants in the 17th century did the introduction of silk make its way into the heights of society. Within this preindustrial timeline the production of textiles was limited to small economic circles of dependency that worked within families and connected with neighbors or villages. Often, the only other spoke in the wheel was a merchant or farmer that supplied the raw fiber. By the mid 18th century, the population in Britain and its colonized territories had grown to a point that the demand for yarn and other fibers forced improvements in spinning methods.
In 1733, John Kay of Lancashire invented the Flying Shuttle which allowed the fiber artisan to weave at an output of 16 spinsters. However, conflicts with British law made the mechanized production of wool difficult as the laws existed to protect traditional ways of creating yarn and textiles. And while silk production still existed in London, the material created was far too delicate and expensive to be afforded by anyone but the ultra wealthy. But in 1740, after the East India Company began, exported cotton began to arrive in the British isles where it was accepted readily. Cotton was not only inexpensive and durable, but it was not regulated by antiquated laws and could be processed just as easily as wool.
As the demand for cotton grew, so did the demand for labor, and this labor came in the form of children and African bodies. The enslavement, abuse, and cultural rape of over 12 million African slaves led to a hierarchical structure of exploitation spanning hundreds of years. This rapid expansion of the transAtlantic slave trade can be directly connected to the growth of Western consumerism. Upon an already existing practice of preindustrial child labor practices, the British empire temporarily had a powerhouse of human labor capable of providing luxury goods to a growing population of wealthy English people. On June 23rd, 1757, the English East India Company defeated Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal, in the Battle of Plassey. This defeat led to the British control of ‘East India’ and the beginning of the cotton trade.
In addition to the textile advances, machines and mills once run by water now ran on coal after James Watt invented the steam engine in 1781. Using coal for these new engines was almost serendipity as the northern English countryside conveniently contained enough coal to create an established center of textile creation for an entire empire. This move toward the steam engine also explains the economic shift from family made textiles to larger, regulated mills that required specific divisions of labor and regimented work schedules. One of the most famous mills during this time was the Quarry Bank Mill, established in 1784, that had all the means to processes cotton fiber all the way through to usable textile.
Quarry Bank Mill was run with a workforce of orphaned children who made up about half the hands in the production. These children, contracted without pay, only received the knowledge of trade as payment. While under contract, the children were fed, taught reading lessons, and were cared for enough to preference the long working hours over homelessness. With improved child mortality rates in industrial Britain, the young workforce became a model for many other mills in the country and by the early 1800s, two-thirds of the 143 cotton mills were described as being children.
The momentum of the Industrial revolution continued as Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and more plantations were established in the southern United States to supply the amount of raw fiber needed for a growing population. However, through the first half of the 19th century, advocates for the safety and well-being of children workers began to speak out and child labor regulations started to pass. Age restrictions, shorter work days, and safety guidelines were standardized and labor shifts in the production of textiles occurred. To make up for the time and labor lost, adult factory workers faced more difficult working conditions because on top of extended hours. In addition to the dangers from the exposed gears of the machines, most workers went deaf over time from their noise and suffered from lung diseases caused by small cotton fibers in the air.
FRANCE
French Textile History
During the Middle Ages, much like Britain at the time, sheep rearing was the main source of textile production. And like Britain, these small economies also ensured a certain amount of wealth in times of recession as the production of cloth was always needed. It wasn’t until 1665, when the Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert directed the French people to convert to a philosophy of a ‘stron dirigisme economique’ allowing the government to structure the economy in the ways it saw fit. By distributing monopolies under state control, Colbert aimed to turn a country that primarily consumed imports to creating exports. The beginning of this change occurred in Lodeve where wool factories emerged creating an industry producing drapes. Other places including Villeneuvette created textiles exclusively sent to the Ottoman Empire well into the early 1700s. Eventually, France witnessed the production of toile fabric created in Jouy.
The first toiles created in Jouy, France were made during the 1770s by the Oberkampf factory near Versailles. These fabrics were highly prized as they displayed comparatively well-rendered engravings made by the renown J.B. Huet using a distinct madder-red dye and newly discovered copper plate printing techniques. In addition, textiles including silk damask and taffeta were used in its production adding to its value. Generally speaking, the red of traditional Toile de Jouy called ‘Pompeian Red’ inspired by Greek vases became popular in wealthy homes. Other colors like blue and green were used as well, usually placed on a lighter background of a complementary or neutral color. These palettes, much like the use of Pompeian Red, were selected because they were supposedly preferred to the ‘ancients’.
Following in the steps of Colbert, Louis XI established a monopoly of silk production in Lyon, France. Historically speaking, until this time silk in Europe had been almost exclusively produced in Italy. However, due to the cost and weight of the fabric, using it for clothing was impractical. The import of Italian silks continued but only for the interiors of homes (drapes, upholstery, etc.). The goal of the French monarchy at this point was to create a uniquely regional silk blend that could be used for clothing at market it for the remainder of Europe. From the 1770s until the 1830s, France became the new silk capital of Europe.
French Toile Influences
The variation in toile produced three distinct groups; historical, pastoral, and chinoiserie. While much of French imagery included pastoral and historical print, the majority used appropriated and reinterpreted images of East Asian traditions called chinoiserie. French toile, like the British versions, used popular engravings as sources for design and created a blend of aesthetics combined with Asian imagery. As a style, it was created for several reasons. In part, its connection to the material of silk made it a choice as did the cultural emphasis upon tea, but it was likely adopted for its relation to the spirit of Rococo. The Wikipedia article on Chinoiserie notes “Both styles are characterized by exuberant decoration, asymmetry, emphasis of materials, and stylized nature...subject matter that focuses on leisure and pleasure.”
The first examples of these interpretations was made by Athanasius Kircher in the mid-late 17th century. These images were followed by other representations in places like the ceramics and paper industries. Adapted stoneware in France attempted to replicate the prized Chinese porcelain and grew in popularity due to its relative cheapness and the rising demand of tea-ware. Within the growth of this style, problematic dynamics exist. Intrinsically unauthentic through its imitation, the popularity of these depictions is dependent upon the ‘knowledge’ of East Asian stereotypes through a western lens, not authentic representations of East Asian culture.
In addition to the textiles and pottery representing this imagery, wallpapers of chinoiserie started to appear as well. The production and growth was in part due to the rise in ‘villa’ architecture and the other in Louis XV’s affinity for the print. The architecture of villas provided more windows and allowed enough light to call attention to the contents and designs of the room it filled. Following the ‘refined’ taste of Louis XV desire for chinoiserie wallpapers increased within the aristocracy and after printing advancements within the middle class. It wasn’t until the First Opium War in 1839 when trade routes with China were disrupted did the decline of chinoiserie fabrics decrease in France.
Labor in French Textile Production
Even without the encouragement of Louis XV, France’s exposure to the spreading European/British fancy with tea would have still influenced the refined values of the French people. England alone around 1750 was importing 10,000,000 pounds of tea a year. And many noble women, notably Queen Mary and Queen Anne, collected chinoiserie tea sets. This socially important cornerstone in French culture was integral to the production and consumption of chinoiserie products.
In addition to Lyon and Jouy; cities like Lodeve, Romans-sur-Isere, and Paris also became major textile producers in France. Colbert, in addition to developing factories that produced wearable textiles, created and delegated tapestry and carpet making to other factories in Paris. This rapid expansion of products called upon both Dutch craftsmen and a new class of specialized laborers that the aristocracy called (often derogatorily) ‘Canuts’.
In the pursuit of transforming the image of France into a symbol of power and monarchy, a work force was needed to run the newly formed industry. The Canuts took up a third of the city of Lyon’s population-- a group of more than 38,000. Unlike many of the workers in England at the time, the Canuts worked from home spinning silk in specially constructed apartments that contained a separate room for workspace. But like the British mill workers, the Canuts endured poor working conditions and long hours. Then in 1831, the Canuts revolted demanding change and a call to the end of their exploitative practices.
AMERICA
American Textile History
America’s textile introduction only begins after the Revolution. Until that time, decoration of the home in the colonial period was usually done in paint. Unlike interior decorating today, paint wasn’t just used for walls but applied with stencils to create ‘rugs’ and designs on furniture. After the war, increased trade with England and the rest of Europe continued leading to the introduction of toile. These patterns, before finding a producer in America, came from France and were often made specifically for American audiences containing images of patriotic victories and important buildings including Independence Hall.
Once the need for more factories was needed within the newly formed country, business partnerships stepped forward and financed both the formation and maintenance of the mills. From this point, and directly after the War of 1812, models of privatized groups combined resources and corporations were formed. Unlike the first partnerships that required more risk-taking, investors in corporations were only responsible for the debts of the company up to the amount invested. Previously, a failed venture would have ended in the investor paying in part or with their full net worth. In 1813, the first textile corporation in the United States was created and named the Boston Manufacturing Company. Much like Quarry Bank Mill in England, the Boston Manufacturing Company had all the machines and knowledge necessary to convert raw cotton into cloth.
By the 1840s, corporate bodies occupied major cities and created an abundance of needed labor. To staff these many mills and factories labor was taken by the rural poor, often women and children finding better pay in cities over farms and agricultural communities. The cities increased an additional 90% in population over the next decade.
American Toile Influences
Toile patterns successfully took hold of refined sensibilities in America, post-Revolution. For many of the same reasons toile emerged in France, the addition of British colonial influence created a yearning for refinements that acted as reminders of British sensibilities and civility. Building upon these traditions and interpretations in Britain and France were the same toile patterns now covering chinoiserie dishware-- a prime example being the British company, Wedgwood. (Figure 4).
Once a family production process, Josiah Wedgwood quickly gained popularity among the British elite and moved its way to America as he was commissioned to create dinnerware for the royal family. Anne Firschler-Tarrasch, decorative arts curator at the Birmingham museum of art states that “[Wedgwood] was a Renaissance man who rose from an average family to become one of the wealthiest men in England.” While the Wedgwood company primarily created dishware (like the iconic Jasperware), medallions and other ceramic products were made as well. The example provided in Figure 5, shows another popular type of Wedgwood ceramic, Transferware. These deep blues and whites are primarily my focus for its associations with Indigo, chinoiserie themes, and the problematic relationship between the plate and the diner.
Much like the deep blues seen in other toile prints, the Transferware of Wedgwood uses dyes and glazes of the same color. This blue and white palette both references traditional Chinese porcelain and the indigo-printed fabrics of the time. Because so many plants of the Indigo family exist, it is often considered an invaluable plant used in less expensive textiles. While the transferware process utilizes cobalt and not indigo, it does use the same copper printing process as toile, moving from sketch or engraving to the pottery.
With the increased trade with China, more and more imports made their way into Western Europe and the United States. While aristocratic audiences favored the authentic tea-ware imported, the building middle class searched for an alternative that emulated the refinements of those more wealthy. Companies and families like Wedgwood provided this substitution by means of mimicry in chinoiserie. Like the ‘knock-off’ luxury brands we still see today, Wedgwood china provided access to a world of wealth and culture that would have previously been isolated to a single class.
Many problematic examples exist from this appropriation through the invented scenes of eastern Asian countries by western artists through a western lens. Stereotypes from this mimicry built an entirely new type of art meant to provide poorer audiences a set of imagery capturing the ‘everyday life’ of a seemingly mysterious culture and traditions dating back hundreds of years. Functioning in the same ways as toile, chinoiserie takes a generalized and poetic attempt to paint a narrative meant to entertain the higher echelons of a new consumerist nation. Also, like toile, the images used for these transfer printing techniques extended not just to chinoiserie but a blended cultural creation that sourced rural imagery. (Figure 5).
A final observation, is using labor imagery or chinoiserie for objects of refinement in connection with consumption. Visualizing a scenario of upper class Europeans and Americans consuming food and drink on the bodies of those exploited creates a dynamic of power and symbolic hierarchy perpetuated by an entire culture. This dynamic developing grew alongside American consumerism and a newly forming cultural identity.
Labor in American Textile Production
In 1790 Samuel Slater, an English immigrant, created the first factory in the United States. With 72 spindles run by nine children, the Lowell mills dealt with restrictive and exploitative practices like the notoriously harsh conditions of British mills. While comparatively better to the lives of workers in England, American mills still had their own dangers. By the time of the Civil War there were over two million spindles in 2,700 separate factories. Working these factories were many children in addition to young, unmarried women called ‘mill girls’. These women, chaperoned by matrons, held to curfews and strict moral codes, often enjoyed a sense of independence from their rural homes but worked 12-hour days, 6 days a week.
In 1840 the ten Lowell mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts were run by approximately 40,000 workers. In this period directly preceding the Civil War, unemployment added additional stress pushing more immigrants and the rural poor into the mills and factories of New England. Most of the workers sourced from these factories came from rural areas of the country due to the higher rate of pay. The children in these factories were also subject to long work days and by 1910 over two million children were employed in cigarette factories, as bobbin doffers in textile mills, coal mines, and canneries.
Conclusion: Differing Opinions
The series of examples illustrating depictions of rural poverty and chinoiserie I believe to describe the relationship of wealthy consumers and their impoverished producers. Generalized and stereotyped, not only are the images representative as ornamentation like staffage, but are depicted as happy in their intense labors. We as the viewer are placed in a higher position indicated by the perspective, as if looking down from the heavens or the heights of a castle. However, authors like Walter Gibson, argue “peasant figure’s enhanced detail and sharpened clarity made throughout the etched set suggest they were actually given increased attention and agency”. While it is true the etching process does produced detailed line-work, the images of people placed by animals and executing ‘happy labor’ speak differently. In addition, the scale of the figures lean far more toward an anonymous caricature than the detail and naturalism of elevated portrait painting. Supporting my claim of social distinctions placed on peasants and wealthy consumers is Larry Silver. In his book “Pleasant Scenes and Landscapes”, Silver states “[s]ocial distinction and hierarchy lay at the foundations of all peasant depiction, marking most peasant representations in art as object of social distance, even if peasants could sometimes be inverted from their usual notion of inferiority to be made into paragons, a rural kind of noble savages”.
Images
1.
“Country Life”, Waverly.
2.
“Inside the View of Messers: Pellate and Green’s St. Paul’s Churchyard”, 1809, Rudolph Ackermann
3.
“A Coastal Capriccio of the Temple of the Sybil at Tivoli with the Day’s Catch on the Shore”, 1641, Jan Brueghel II
4.
“Minton (English) Dessert Dish”, 1810, Wedgwood
5.
“Untitled”, mid 18th c. - 19th c., Artist Unknown
Bibliography
Christie’s. “Why the little people count: The art of staffage” Christie’s, accessed 4/21/19, https://www.christies.com/features/the-art-of-staffage-7449-1.aspx
French Moments. “Textile History in France”, published Nov 26, 2016, accessed 4/21/19 https://frenchmoments.eu/textile-history-in-france/
Green, Caitlin. “The Pastoral and the Peasant”, Tracing Landscapes, accessed 4/21/19, https://blogs.umass.edu/cegreen/the-pastoral-and-the-peasant
Hopley, Claire. “A History of the British Cotton Industry”,British Heritage, published Jul 29, 2006, accessed 4/21/19, https://britishheritage.com/british-textiles-clothe-the-world
Jackson, Nancy Mann. ”250 Years of Wedgwood”, published sept 28, 2009, accessed 5/1/19 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/250-years-of-wedgwood-143057153
Phillips, Barty. “Fabrics and Wallpapers: Sources, Design, and Inspiration”, published 1991, Bulfinch Press
U.S. History. “The First American Factories”, ushistory.org, published 2019, accessed 4/21/19, http://www.ushistory.org/us/25d.asp
White, Matthew. “The rise of consumerism”, British Library, published May 15, 2014, accessed 4/21/19 https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-rise-of-consumerism
Wikipedia Contributors. "Child labour," Wikipedia, accessed May 9, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Child_labour&oldid=896168387
Wikipedia Contributors. "Chinoiserie," Wikipedia, accessed May 1, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chinoiserie&oldid=866413261
Comments