Alsatian Mühlhaus - one of the last mountain castles, whose wallpapers are real paintings. Exotic landscapes and fantastic graphics were created at the Zuber factory and in the studio of Alexander Polallon.
Spread to distant lands, see firsthand unknown lands ...
Almost every inhabitant of the 18th century dreamed about this, when traveling was not as commonplace as it is now. The easiest way was to bring your dream closer to you by decorating the walls of your own home with an exotic panorama.
So more than 200 years ago in France the art of "paper paintings" - wallpaper. Hundreds of factories until the end of the 19th century produced grandiose wall-mounted landscapes, which today are rightly regarded as works of art.
Paper wallpaper paintings are preserved as relics in some castles and villas. Yes, and the art of hand-made paper both have not been forgotten so far. Despite the fact that there are literally units all over the world where there are manufactures where wallpaper is printed manually using old technologies.
One of them is the Zuber manufactory in the Alsatian town of Ricksheim. Perhaps this is generally the only enterprise where the perfectionist attitude to the manufacture of paper wallpaper-paintings as art for noble aristocrats has been exactly preserved.
These are huge pictures of fantastic worlds with lush vegetation and an abundance of animals, palm trees and mangrove swamps, waterfalls, flamingos and tropical flowers are adjacent here.
Such incredible and grandiose landscapes in every sense are still stored in the form of ready-made wallpapers in the “warehouses” of the manufactory founded in 1779. Stencils for printing are cut according to old technologies on wooden plates and rollers (the latter more closely resemble wine barrels).
Almost a year is required for Zuber to create historical wallpapers for his next exclusive client. Moreover, customers stand in line and this line only increases over time.
As a rule, for one wall, from 20 to 30 butt-glued vertical paper canvases are required. Moreover, before printing, the canvas is primed with a mixture of chalk, wood glue and colorful pigments. Only to create a multilayer background, printers work for months. Using special scrapers and brushes, the paper is processed until the desired nuance transitions appear.
After drying the tint, a variety of wooden stencils go into business. With their help, details of a colossal landscape are painted in more than 100 colors.
This creates an exotic dream, which to this day is more vivid than a real journey.
MUSEUM
Musee du Papier Peint (Museum of Paper Painting) is located directly opposite the factory building. Its halls exhibit more than 100 00 different works created over the centuries of the manufacture's existence. There you can see and purchase the works of Alexander Polallon.
RIXHEIM / ZUBER / FR
MASTERS OF NEW TIME
He is trying to raise the art of creating paper wallpapers to a level appropriate to his understanding.
One day, an artist-decorator and restorer accidentally fell into the hands of an 18th-century book that described the technique for making so-called “domino ornaments” on paper — the predecessors of art wallpaper paintings. Geometric and floral ornaments formed by printing individual motifs on paper using carved wooden stencils inspired Alexander to change his field of activity. Indeed, in this ancient form of painting there was so much from contemporary art!
He took up the inventory of the Musee du Papier Peint archives. And after a year and a half, the 39-year-old artist began to make his own wooden carved stencils for printing. He does his painting precisely according to the technologies of 200 years ago. Its sheets measuring 30 x 40 cm can be wallpapered like wallpaper. But more often they are used to decorate boxes and books.
MULHOUSE / ATELIER-POULAILLON.FR
Photo captions:
Photo 1 The wall painting from the manufactory Zuber "Les Zones Terrestres" ("All the Lands of the World") was created in 1855 from 31 hand-printed canvas wallpapers.
Photo 2 The picture on paper wallpaper "Eldorado" consists of 24 canvases of wallpaper.
Photo 3 The Zuber manufactory archive contains historical wooden stencils.
Photo 4 Motifs are imprinted on a background primed with different color transitions in many layers.
Photo 5 The old factory building of Zuber in Ricksheim (Alsace).
Photo 6-9 Zuber's vaulted cellars have collected more than 150,000 stencils on wooden plates and rollers. Carved more than 200 years ago, they are used to this day in the creation of "historical" handmade wallpaper.
Photo 10 Alexander Polellon
Photo 11 Wooden plate stencil for printing a picture on a box for dominoes
Photo 12 Ready printed motif
Photo 13 A box covered with colored paper with a pattern made by hand according to old wallpaper technology.
Photo: Zuber (2); Rene Antonoff (2); P. Psaila / Focus (1)
