The tumbling block is one of the oldest patterns in the decorative repertory, and the Art Deco period took it up with enthusiasm, laying it in tile and terrazzo across the floors of foyers, bathrooms and lobbies. Mosaic reduces it to its smallest workable scale and puts it on the wall.
The repeat is 2.2 cm, which is very short indeed. At that size the eye cannot separate the individual cubes from more than a few feet away and the pattern reads as a fine, faintly shifting texture; only close to does the three-dimensional illusion of the block assert itself. Surface printing gives the motif a slightly raised body, and where metallic is used it catches light in small points rather than as a sheet.
Practically, a repeat this short is about as easy as wallpaper gets. There is almost nothing to match at a seam, waste is minimal, and the pattern absorbs an out-of-true wall without complaint. It works as a ground for a room full of pictures, in a cloakroom, along a corridor, or anywhere a plain would be dull and a pattern would be too much. It is also one of the few designs that will happily run up a stair and along a landing without needing a break.
