The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Introduction
The Arts and Crafts Movement began in the midst of The Industrial
Revolution, a time of massive technological and social change.
It was a reaction against a decline in standards that associated with
machinery and factory production.
The result was a body of work across all media, graphic design,
architecture, furniture, product, and lighting that was beautiful and
unique.
We live in a world surrounded by the influences of the Arts and Crafts
Movement. From the design of iphone to the care for typography on a
beautiful book, and your kitchen, with simple lines and well-made
materials.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Introduction
William Morris , John Ruskin and a group of artists and designers looked
at the Industrial Revolution's social issues and believed art and design
could be the way to create a better society.
They promoted a return to the natural world with an emphasis on skill
and handmade.
They believed in a culture of skilled labour with a master craftsman
working to train an apprentice.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences
Industrial Revolution
Victorian Excess
Gothic Revival
The Grammar of Ornament
Pre-Raphaelite

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - Industrial Revolution

Mid 19th century - new machines were developed that replaced human
labour.
The low quality of design in mass production, lack of skill, and loss of
pride in workmanship.
People were moving from an agricultural to an industrial economy.
For the first time in history, average people had access to products
previously only accessible to the rich.
The Industrial Revolution increased production and provided a wider
range of products.
It alleviated issues of hunger and malnutrition with new transportation
options.
But working conditions for the lower classes were often deplorable and
child labor was rampant.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - Industrial Revolution

Cities became centres of pollution, overcrowding, and disease due to
sanitation problems.
This reduced costs and gave more people access to products, but
decreased quality, skill, and any sense of an individual designer. Quality
was often ignored .
The goal was not to create something long lasting with the skill of the
designer and manufacturer, but to make it fast with built in
obsolescence.
A part of the design world began to reject the loss of quality and the
handmade due to mechanization. They looked for an alternative way of
working and making, hoping to improve the quality of life and maintain
the highest standards.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - Industrial Revolution

Cities became centres of

pollution, overcrowding, and
disease due to sanitation
problems.
This reduced costs and gave
more people access to products,
but decreased quality, skill, and
any sense of an individual
designer. Quality was often
ignored .

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - Industrial Revolution

The goal was not to create

something long lasting with the
skill of the designer and
manufacturer, but to make it fast
with built in obsolescence.
A part of the design world began
to reject the loss of quality and
the handmade due to
mechanization. They looked for
an alternative way of working
and making, hoping to improve
the quality of life and maintain
the highest standards.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - Victorian Excess

The Victorian era officially began in 1837 when Queen Victoria began
her reign in Britain and ended in 1901.
The Industrial Revolution brought low living standards for the lower
classes, but lead the rise of a growing middle class and self-indulgent
nouveau riche, newly rich, class.
The acquisition of wealth become a new wide spread cultural force.
To reinforce their new position in society members of the nouveau riche
developed a desire for ornamentation and ostentatious decoration.
This was also the height of the British Empire, which controlled a vast
portion of the world with colonial structure.
Victorian design celebrated this with a liberal use of artefacts, art, and
pattern from all of the countries of the Empire.
Too much was not enough.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - Victorian Excess

A room could be
decorated with a
Moroccan theme, or
Indian textiles, mixed
with Egyptian antiquities.
While we consider this
style as excessive and
cluttered, the Victorians
saw this as a celebration
of their wealth and
strength of the British
Empire.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - Gothic Revival

The Gothic Revival was a stylistic movement that reached its

peak of popularity by the 1850s
It paralleled Victorian design with a preference for decorative
elements and ornament, but added, a spiritual element.
It look toward Medieval Christian England and France, as
opposed to the Victorian preference for the exotic and classical.
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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - Gothic Revival

In architecture, the Gothic Revival style

borrowed from Gothic cathedrals and
Medieval churches.
The Gothic style was applied to all types
of structures, including houses, office
buildings, and hospitals, with the belief
that the style would reinvigorate
Protestant and Catholic values.
There was a strong connection between
Gothic Revival and the desire to return
to a nobler and simpler time in the
midst of the Industrial Revolution.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - Gothic Revival

Stepping away from the factory and returning to a simple master and
apprentice system would restore order.
The Gothic Revival style could not be sustained with its dense
ornamentation and labour intensive forms.
Machine-made items began to replace the handcrafted forms, and the
quality diminished.
The movement was doomed to fail as a way to change society, but it
opened the door to the concepts of skill, craftsmanship, the handmade,
and returned to a more idyllic and agrarian time.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - The Grammar of Ornament

Much of the Victorian and Gothic style was a convoluted mix of
different historical styles. There was no designer at the lead striving for
cohesive simplicity.
The style was purely decoration. The architects and designers were not
interested in historical or cultural accuracy.
Owen Jones, a Welsh architect, strove to design a style that rejected the
Gothic and ornamental, and embodied a 19th century modern style,
based on rational and historical accuracy.
He was inspired by the patterns and shapes of Islamic decoration on the
buildings and believed this mathematical complexity of pattern and
colour was the antidote to the chaos of other Victorian styles.
He researched and refined aggressive theories surrounding pattern,
geometry and abstraction in ornament.
In 1856 he published a seminal book The Grammar of Ornament.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - The Grammar of Ornament

The Grammar of Ornament
introduced architects,
designers and graphic artists
to a style that embraced a
more logical and simpler
aesthetic over Victorian and
Gothic excess. But, this was
an approach that continued
to be about an ornamental
veneer, not a holistic
approach.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Influences - Pre-Raphaelite
In 1848, a group of seven young artists at London's Royal Academy of
Arts rejected what they felt was an artificial and mannered approach to
painting. They called themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the
name referring to their preference for late medieval and Renaissance art
before the painter Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino.
These artists adopted the idea of truth to nature to their work.
They advocated a return to the simplicity, lack of sentimentality, and
overly mannered style found in medieval art.
Pre-Raphaelite patron, John Ruskin, defended the painters even when
most of the public criticized their works.
The ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites, as a protest against mass production
in the Industrial Era, and social equality, inspired William Morris and a
group of artists to emphasize the unique qualities and beauty of natural
materials which launched the arts and crafts movement.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Origin
The movement took its name from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society,
set up in 1888, although its origins went back to the negative sentiment
generated by the Great Exhibition of 1851.
By 1851, England was confident as the dominant world power with a
massive manufacturing boom. The future was bright, with a wealth of
new machines and technologies.
Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert decided to build an exhibition
for the world to witness the wonders of Victorian England. The Great
Exhibition was housed inside the Crystal Palace, a massive structure of
steel and glass dominating the landscape.
The public marvelled at the inventions and excess with pride in Britain's
dominance and power. The Great Exhibition was an enormous success.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

Origin
William Morris, John Ruskin and several friends visited the Great
Exhibition and were revolted.
The excess and ornamentation, the mass-produced products, low quality
of craftsmanship, and dehumanizing nature of industrial manufacturing
disgusted them.
Morris looked at the Gothic style and its return to medieval values, but
soon deemed it too ornate and simply a decoration.
Over the next 20 years, he worked with a talented group of artists and
designers to define a style that was honest, humble, handcrafted, and
made with pride.

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The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900)

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