Textiles: Pictorial Solutions

The Belle Époque witnessed a renewed interest in decorative textiles. The important Art Nouveau designer Hermann Obrist (1862–1927) captured with painstaking accuracy the growth stages of a climbing plant and the alarming spread of lichens as motifs, while the Geneva-based painter Alice Bailly (1872–1938) depicted young girls dancing at futuristic speed. The multicolored fringe lends the scene additional vitality. The figural motifs by Eugene Hasenfratz (1872–1939) and Walter Roshardt (1897–1966) seem rather static by comparison. The former transferred Obrist’s flora into a harmony between human and animal in oval format, while Roshardt evoked an idyllic scene in an embroidered miniature.