ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT

ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT. Started in England in the late nineteenth century, the Arts and Crafts movement affected nearly every aspect of household design, from architecture to pottery, and continues to do so. The movement was a response to the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution and the excesses of the Victorian Age, during which the middle classes collected frilly, mass-produced knickknacks. Arts and Crafts embraced simplicity of line, good, durable materials, and the human touch. Proponents were divided over the use of machines for production.

The English poet and artist William Morris, widely considered the movement's founder, articulated its philosophy, stressing the importance of the dignity and humanity of the work of craftsmen: "every thing made by

man's hands has a form, which must be either beautiful or ugly; beautiful if it is in accord with Nature, and helps her; ugly if it is discordant with Nature, and thwarts her." In America, the movement spawned a number of organizations and guilds dedicated to its ideals. In 1895, a group of artisans established "Roy croft" ("King's Craft"), in East Aurora, N.Y., a community (which is again functioning) whose mission was to evoke images of medieval craftsmanship. Other guilds included the Society of Arts and Crafts of Boston and the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society, both founded in 1897. Guild members represented almost all aspects of design, including architecture, furniture, gardens, textiles, stained glass, pottery and cast iron.

In architecture, the first major innovations appeared in Chicago and the Midwest, where Frank Lloyd Wright designed Prairie Style homes, which used horizontal lines to follow the landscape. The bungalow, a later architectural development, began in southern California; and it brought the concepts of the Prairie Style to small, middle-class homes. Built largely in the early twentieth century, bungalow houses incorporated Prairie Style features such as exposed joinery and low-hanging eaves.

Gustav Stickley led the way in furniture design. To this day, the factory he founded in upstate New York turns out Mission Style furniture, which uses strong, simple woods such as oak and clean, geometric lines with exposed joinery.

The leaders in Arts and Crafts pottery included Henry Chapman Mercer, whose Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, founded in the 1890s, used local clay and hand craftsmanship to make mosaic and story tiles. Artus van Briggle invented a matte glaze that resembled ancient Chinese pottery. His designs are still reproduced at his factory in Colorado.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

London, Neil, and Chris Wheeler. The Arts and Crafts Legacy. Home and Garden Television, 2001.

Morris, William. Hopes and Fears for Art. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1882.

Stansky, Peter. Redesigning the World: William Morris, the 1880s, and the Arts and Crafts. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985.

Rebekah PressonMosby

See alsoArchitecture ; Furniture .

Arts and Crafts movement. A social and aesthetic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that championed good design and craftsmanship at a time of increasing mechanization and mass production. The movement, which was concerned mainly with architecture and the decorative arts, originated in Britain and chiefly flourished there, but it also had a significant impact in several Continental countries and in the USA. It was a very broad, loosely structured movement, embracing numerous strands of thought and practice; for the most serious-minded adherents, it involved fundamental issues about human society, but for others it was little more than a decorative fad. There was no particular style associated with the movement (influences came from many different sources), but there was an emphasis on ‘honesty’—on producing products that showed clearly what they were made of and how they worked. This advocacy of simplicity and integrity often involved emphasizing plain materials and surfaces, an approach that has had a lasting influence on modern design.

The movement's name derives from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, founded in 1888, but its origins go back to the 1850s, particularly to the ideas of John Ruskin, who was the most eloquent and influential of the writers who deplored the aesthetic as well as the social effects of industrialization. He hated the type of highly decorated, machine-made products that dominated the Great Exhibition (1851) and believed that the beauty of medieval art sprang from pride in individual craftsmanship. His ideas greatly influenced William Morris, who wrote that art was ‘man's expression of his joy in labour’ and believed that good design could help create a better society. Through the decorative arts firm he established in 1861, Morris set about the re-creation of hand industry in a machine age, producing textiles, printed books, wallpaper, furniture, and so forth. Aesthetically his work was a triumph, and his firm was a commercial success, but his ideal of producing art for the masses failed for the simple reason that only rich people could afford his products. Nevertheless, his ideas had great influence on craftsmen, teachers, and propagandists, and in the 1880s various organizations were founded to promote Arts and Crafts ideas, including the Art Workers' Guild (1884), which aimed to increase understanding and collaboration between different branches of the visual arts. Walter Crane was one of the leading figures of the Guild. The movement had passed its peak in Britain by the time of the First World War, but its ideas continued to be influential, for example on Eric Gill. Outside Britain, the movement had a particularly strong impact in Austria, notably on the Wiener Werkstätte.

Arts and Crafts Movement A social and aesthetic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that championed good design and craftsmanship at a time of increasing mechanization and mass production. The movement, which was concerned mainly with architecture and the decorative arts, originated in Britain and chiefly flourished there, but it also had a significant impact in several Continental countries and in the USA. It was a very broad, loosely structured movement, embracing numerous strands of thought and practice; for the most serious-minded adherents, it involved fundamental issues about human society, but for others it was little more than a decorative fad. There was no particular style associated with the movement (influences came from many different sources), but there was an emphasis on ‘honesty’—on producing products that showed clearly what they were made of and how they worked. This advocacy of simplicity and integrity often involved emphasizing plain materials and surfaces—an approach that has had a lasting influence on modern design.

The movement's name derives from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, founded in 1888, but its origins go back to the 1850s, particularly to the ideas of John Ruskin, who was the most eloquent and influential of the writers who deplored the aesthetic as well as the social effects of industrialization. He hated the type of highly decorated, machine-made products that dominated the Great Exhibition (1851) and believed that the beauty of medieval art sprang from pride in individual craftsmanship. His ideas greatly influenced William Morris, who wrote that art was ‘man's expression of his joy in labour’ and believed that good design could help create a better society. Through the decorative arts firm he established in 1861, Morris set about the re-creation of hand industry in a machine age, producing textiles, printed books, wallpaper, furniture, and so forth. Aesthetically his work was a triumph, and his firm was a commercial success, but his ideal of producing art for the masses failed for the simple reason that only rich people could afford his products. Nevertheless, his ideas had great influence on craftsmen, teachers, and propagandists, and in the 1880s various organizations were founded to promote Arts and Crafts ideas, including the Art Workers' Guild (1884), which aimed to increase understanding and collaboration between different branches of the visual arts. Walter Crane was one of the leading figures of the Guild. The movement had passed its peak in Britain by the time of the First World War, but its ideas continued to be influential, for example on Eric Gill. Outside Britain, the movement had a particularly strong impact in Austria, notably on the Wiener Werkstätte.

Arts and Crafts Movement Late 19th- and early 20th-century British movement, led by artists who wanted to revitalize the decorative arts by returning to the ideals of medieval craftsmanship. Inspired by William Morris, the movement contributed to European art nouveau, but was eventually transformed by the acceptance of modern industrial methods.

Arts and Crafts Movement an English decorative arts movement of the second half of the 19th century which sought to revive the ideal of craftsmanship in an age of increasing mechanization and mass production. William Morris was its most prominent member.

Arts and Crafts movement. See CRANE.