the British Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century grew out of the artistic and social activism of John Ruskin and William Morris who exposed the detrimental effects of industrialization on both art and lives of workers John Ruskin was a respected art critic polymath and social visionary who became the first professor of art history at Oxford in 1869 William Morris had a more hands-on approach to revolutionising the applied arts learning and reviving traditional practices in stained glass tapestry weaving printing and natural textile dyes in his Morris & Company workshops both men decried the shoddy nature of factory produced wares that flooded the already over decorated parlors of the Victorian period and called for a reevaluation of what truly constituted a beautiful home in his now famous dictum Morris asked what else can we do to help to educate ourselves and others in the path of art to be on the road to attaining an art made by the people and for the people as a joy to the maker and the user believe me if we want art to begin at home as it must if you want a golden rule that will fit everybody this is it have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believed to be beautiful overlooking the River Thames in London's borough of Hammersmith is Kelmscott house the London home of William Morris from 1878 until his death in 1896 part of the house remains open today as the William Morris society and museum curator Helen Ellison explains the lasting appeal of William Morris Morris himself influenced a wide variety of people I think because Morris was so wide-ranging is not just the arts and crafts but other people book design as typographers environmentalists socialists have been inspired by him you know right up to now to this day his legacy really does live on in many different people and in their work and lives and I think what's interesting is quite a lot happening now in a wave like exhibitions here in McCarthy's exhibition and the national portrait coming up and that I believe goes up to 1950s showing how Morris started with the Arts and Crafts movement and the legacy was built on afterwards and I think what's so important about Morris is that he what he believed in sort of shines through in the products that he made and I think people have really taken that message to heart and the idea that you have beautiful things in your home that would impact and how really profound influence on your quality of life and I think a lot of designers to this day looking at Morris and trying to do that you can earn there again going away from noise polluting hated lead the Industrial Revolution a factory system and the way that designer and maker were divorced there was no link there and I think contemporary people today are trying to do put Morris's ideas back into practice again and designing and making the things themselves which is really interesting I think Morris would be pleased to see that his work lives on to this day Ruskin and Morris critiqued the division of labor and factory production lines as dividing the souls of the men women and children who worked them they went on to spearhead social movements to improve the working and living conditions of the lower classes in 1871 Ruskin formed what would become the guild of st. George promoting art education and craft work to revive rural economies and challenged the model of unchecked industrial capitalism William Morris had already established a guild system with shared profits at his Burton Abbey workshops producing decorative arts for Morris & Company the ideals of both men took root and became a movement in the early 1880s first with the formation of the century guild in eighteen - led by the architect and designer Arthur Hague eight McMurdo the century guild published an influential quarterly magazine the hobbyhorse which combined modern painting and design with literature a group of young london-based architects founded the art workers guild in 1884 whose aim was to bridge the traditional divisions between artists architects designers and craftsmen uniting designers and artisans from a broad range of the applied arts together they challenged the Royal academies preferencing of the so called high arts in which painting was elevated above all others prior to the Renaissance this hierarchy did not exist in the same way and the high work standards of wood carvers stonemasons and illuminators was not relegated below that of painters social reform projects arose to counter appalling conditions of poverty such as Toynbee Hall which opened in 1885 in London's poorer East End part of the university extension movement it gave Oxford and Cambridge graduates like C R Ashby access to the local community here art would be a driving force in reform and Ashby would go on to train East End cockneys in the traditional arts of wood carving metalwork and blacksmithing to found his guild of handicraft in 1888 also in 1888 the Arts and Crafts movement coalesced around the formation of the arts and crafts exhibition society including designers makers and manufacturers their credo was that art is or should be an agent in the production of noble life Society exhibitions began in 1888 and continued annually for three years and then every three years thereafter the exhibition's featured lectures and demonstrations given by its leading designers such as William Morris shown here at the loom lecturing on traditional weaving techniques and sketched by his friend the artist Edward burne-jones in 1893 the Society published an important series of essays by their most prominent masters in the British applied arts which lead out standards of excellence in their respective fields including woodworking stained glass ceramics metalwork textiles and the publishing arts of manuscripts book binding and printing while the movement had mainly begun in London in the 1880s in the following decade it spread to Britain's industrial cities our workers guilds and schools teaching the applied arts became active throughout the nation including the central school of arts and crafts in London the Birmingham School of Art the Kazakhs school of industrial art and others in Manchester Liverpool and Glasgow the Arts and Crafts design us that it can initially be difficult to pinpoint as the range of the applied arts it impacted is so broad however common to the diversity of work media was an ideal of truth to materials clean functional designs that allow the natural beauty of the components to shine through and not be dominated by a necessary ornamentation our surface treatment furniture for example was constructed from native woods often with traditional woven rush seats and the woodwork left unpainted in order to celebrate the woods natural green color and luster beautifully crafted joints were left exposed to celebrate the handmade craftsmanship of the piece this returned to simplicity characterised many of the Arts and Crafts designs and indeed a broader approach to life espoused by its practitioners they sought to counter the excesses of Victorian culture and interior decoration in particular by suggesting that less is more it would go on to shape artistic and social movements in America and Europe more so than other movements of its time such as the aesthetic movement and the more decorative art Nouveau Art Nouveau found its fullest flowering in France but had its leading designers in Britain also including Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Archibald Knox its swirling lines and the way motifs are elongated and abstracted can be distinguished from Arts and Crafts more rectilinear design style and clean surfaces among the Arts and Crafts design principles espoused by Ruskin and Morris was a return to nature for design inspiration already in the Victorian period a fascination with botany was fueled by the discoveries of new specimens arriving from around the world in Britain's far-flung Empire for example Oxford University's Museum of Natural History opened in 1860 with its neo-gothic design and celebration of natural motifs attributed by the architects Benjamin Woodward and Thomas knew and am Dean to the influence of John Ruskin the inner court is surrounded by 30 columns on each floor each constructed of a different British oan and their capitals are talked by individually distinct carvings of botanical specimens the stonemasons the O'Shea brothers worked from live plant specimens such as this pitcher plant brought fresh to the worksite for modeling college's Botanical Gardens itself the oldest botanical garden in England the Arts and Crafts movement continued this kind of celebration of nature in its motifs with many of the textiles ceramics and metal work featuring trees and flowers from Britain's native hedgerows as a way to bring the beauty inherent in nature into the home by reviving interest in the natural environment the Arts and Crafts movement is often incorrectly misrepresented as rejecting mechanization however even William Morris the acknowledged father of the Arts and Crafts movement had machine looms in his workshops at Merton Abbey using them when they reduced workers tedium and not when they might inhibit creativity indeed it was more the larger social costs of Industry that Morris opposed declaring that he was not against machinery per se but the great intangible machine of commercial tyranny which oppresses the lives of all of us in 1883 Morris joined the Democratic Federation an early party in the British Socialist Movement and over the next decade lectured at rallies and in support of workers strikes around the country well I think Austin Morris himself was really trying to make things better life better for the working classes he wanted a revolution to take place Morris was very struck by this the poverty of this area when he came to live here in 1878 although this rich it's very beautiful surrounding it were really poor quality housing areas and splendor to the left of this house little whopping was a terrible area with really poor quality housing and real areas of deprivation and this really struck Morris it always had a surfer conscience but it's really prompted him to do something about it and he dictates on his good luck being born on this side of the window most beautiful books and works of art I'm not out there in the street amongst the poverty you can see and so in 1883 he joined the Social Democratic Federation afterwards so she asleep was born in the Hammersmith branch was founded and so this was the meeting hall of that nursing socialists and they continued to meet here every Sunday evening throughout Morris's life and he dedicated a huge amount of time and energy to the surface cause speaking many times locally enhancement and if his favorite spots was just down the road at the foot of houses bridge but of course he spoke up and down the country as well and lots of things people spoke a and came to watch and listen to the lectures may Marx herself used to supervise the library here just above us and the stuff holes do to supervise the associate elite choir so it's really interesting people that we're here in Jordan and Shaw was among most prominent speakers after Morris himself and his memoirs give a real tantalizing glimpse into what it was like being a young socialist revolution days Yaba Morris himself influenced a white