The Arts and Crafts wallpaper was built on a single principle: the plant should govern the geometry. Jasmine & Serin Symphony follows it. Jasmine vines arc across the wall in wide, even sweeps, and the birds are set where the stems cross, perched rather than in flight, so that the structure of the design and its incident are the same thing.
What updates it is the tonal handling. Rather than the flat blocks of colour a nineteenth-century print would have used, flowers and foliage are graded, so a soft ombre runs through each arc and the pattern appears to advance and recede as it crosses the wall. The birds are drawn lightly, almost transparently, which keeps them from becoming the subject. They are found rather than presented.
At a 68.5 cm straight repeat on 0.52 m rolls, the arcs are large enough to give a room movement without the drawing becoming coarse. It suits rooms with height, a drawing room, a stairwell, a bedroom with good ceilings, and it sits particularly well above panelling, where the horizontal line at the bottom gives the sweeping vines something to spring from. In a smaller room it is better used on all four walls than on one, so the arcs can complete themselves.
