Studying the history of art and design, we've already discovered that art is often a reaction to what's gone before. The arts and crafts movement was a reaction to the poor quality design during the Industrial Revolution. The following images are from the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in London in 1851. This exposition was the brainchild of Prince Albert and celebrated industry and exhibited the latest technology. What it didn't show was the darker side of industrialization.
The arts and crafts advocates criticized back to production as machines replaced workers. They believed that the growth of industry had destroyed traditional skills and removed the pride of craftsmen confined in his work. Some members of the movement formed themselves into craft guilds based on medieval examples in order to encourage high standards of design and provide a supportive working environment.
The Gothic Revival also had a strong impact on the arts and crafts style. The interest in all things medieval and the use of strong forms and colors appealed to artists. Straightforward use of material, structure, and function promoted by A.W.M. Pugin were shared principles of the arts and crafts movement. The central figure in the movement was the British designer William Morris, who was inspired by the writings of Ruskin.
In 1861, he founded his first company which produced a wide range of decorative objects for the home, including furniture, fabrics, wallpaper, and stained glass. He was also known as a poet and writer, and in 1890 he became a printer, setting up the Kelmscott Press, establishing a print shop at Hammersmith in January of 1891. Between then and 98, they produced 53 books. Kelmscott was the culmination of Morris's life as a craftsman.
He set out to prove that the high standards of the past could be repeated and even surpassed. The books he produced were medieval in design, based on Inca nobula from the 15th century. His Golden Type, for example, was inspired by the work of the early Venetian printer, Nichols Jensen.
Noteworthy for their harmony of type and illustration, Morris'goal was to have each book seen as a whole and included taking painstaking care with all aspects of production. The high standard of Kelmscott books inspired a revival of private presses across Europe and America and impacted both typography and graphic design. William Morris combined his artistic skills with strong political beliefs.
A committed conservationist and socialist, he dedicated his life to the idea that art should improve the lives of ordinary people. Morris believed that the machine degraded both the creator and consumer. Arts and crafts designs were characterized by simplicity of form, function, and decoration. American arts and crafts would be closely linked to the work of Morris, along with the second generation of British designers, such as Charles Robert Ashby, who would visit the United States.
Ashby designed important pieces of jewelry and silver tableware for the Guild of Handicraft, established in 1888 in the East End of London. The Guild's work was characterized by plain surfaces of hammered silver, flowing wirework, and colored stones in simple settings. The F.A. Boise, whose work was known throughout important publications such as the studio, had a highly original style which combined simplicity and sophistication.
He was known for his wallpaper and textile designs, which featured stylized bird and plant forms. with bold outlines and flat colors. The vernacular or everyday domestic traditions of rural Britain were a major inspiration for the arts and crafts movement.
Many of those involved set up workshops in rural areas and revived old techniques. Simple forms were one of the hallmarks of the style. There was no extravagant or superfluous decoration, and the actual construction of the object was often exposed.
Nature was an important source for the arts and crafts motifs. The patterns used were inspired by the flora and fauna of the British countryside. Unfortunately, English arts and crafts came to stress craftsmanship at the expense of mass market pricing.
The result was exquisitely made and decorated pieces that could only be afforded by the very wealthy. Thus the idea of art for the people was lost, and only relatively few craftsmen could be employed in making these fine pieces. The crafts guilds gave themselves names such as the Guild of St. George, the Art Workers Guild, and the Guild of Handicraft. Arthur McMurdo was another progressive architect and designer who influenced the movement.
notably through the Century Guild. He set up in partnership with Selwyn Image. In 1884, the Guild published a quarterly journal entitled Hobby Horse to promote their aims and ideals. In particular, they championed the craft of printing.
In the U.S., the goal of design for the masses was more fully realized, although at the expense of the fine individualized craftsmanship typical of the English style. In New York, Gustav Stickley was trying to serve a growing market of middle-class consumers who wanted affordable, decent-looking furniture. By using factory methods to produce the basic components and utilizing craftsmen to finish and assemble, he was able to produce sturdy, serviceable furniture sold in vast quantities and surviving still today. The rectilinear, simpler American arts and crafts style came to dominate American architecture interiors and furnishings in the late 19th and early 20th century. The term mission style was also used to describe arts and crafts in the U.S., reflecting the influence of traditional furnishings and interiors from the American Southwest, which had many features in common with arts and crafts.
Charles and Henry Green were important mission-style architects working in California and incorporated Hispanic elements associated with early mission and Spanish architecture in Native American design. The result was a blending of arts and crafts, rectilinear forms with traditional Spanish colonial architecture and furnishings. Another American, Elbert Hubbard, met William Morris on a visit to England in 1894. He was unable to find a publisher for his book, Little Journeys, but was so inspired by Morris'Helmscott Press that he decided to set up his own press and print it.
the book himself founding roy cloth brass hubbard proved to be such a prolific and popular writer that fame and fortune soon followed his support of the arts and crafts approach attracted a number of visiting craftspeople to east aurora new york where they formed a community of printers, furniture makers, metalsmiths, leathersmiths, and bookbinders. Pottery was one of the crafts not produced in abundance in the original Roycroft community, but since the 1970s, artists in the area have marketed arts and crafts style ceramics on the Roycroft campus in New York. Opposition to modern methods of production and the tendency to look back to the medieval world rather than forward to a more progressive area of mechanization was what have been the eventually defeated the arts and crafts movement.
The socialist idea of producing affordable, quality handcrafted design for the masses failed, as the production costs of their designs were so high that they could only be purchased by the wealthy. Any movement which continues to look to the past was not successful.