Tile Toile sets itself a puzzle and solves it neatly. The wall is divided into tiles, each holding a still life drawn from the landscapes of the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto, in the manner of traditional Japanese wall painting. Read one at a time they are separate scenes. Read as a wall they join into a continuous account of the historic gardens, which is the trick a toile de Jouy has always performed, transplanted here into a different tradition.
The drawing is fine and even, with the linework carrying the whole design, and the tile grid gives it an architectural discipline that a scenic paper usually lacks. Printed on a non-woven ground, the surface is smooth and matte, so nothing competes with the line.
It hangs on a third drop from a 0.7 m roll, 8 m long, with a 105 cm repeat. The third drop is doing real work here: it offsets each column of tiles against its neighbour so the grid never hardens into rows and columns, and it disguises the joins between drops. The scale suits a room you can stand back in, such as a dining room, a study or a bedroom with a low bed, and it is at ease with dark stained timber, paper shades and plain matting.
