The arts and crafts movement wasn’t a new idea starting in 1863 but properly announced to the world in 1888 by a workers guild exhibition in London were all the participants called themselves the arts and crafts society which is where the movements gets its name from.
The Arts & Crafts Society
It is during this exhibition that the arts and craft society made their notions clear to the public that they are fed up of seeing mass produced products that came about due to the industrial revolution replacing the fine and well crafted products that us to be made prior. The arts and crafts movement encouraged designers to explore and experiment with new materials to create new interesting innovations in the market. The majority of the society was not against the industrial revolution but they only wished it was controlled and mastered to create better quality things that could be available to the masses.
As William Morris once said “We do not reject the machine, we welcome it. But we would desire to see it mastered.”
William Morris
William Morris is one of the most influential members of the society and once can argue he is the father of the movement. Born in 1843 and died in 1896 he was a philosopher, political theorist, artist and designer. He had also created the company Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co provides a wide variety of crafted 19th centaury products from furniture to wallpaper.
A William Morris design lounge chair recreation
The company is still around today and is still producing items for home owners particularly clients that desire recreations of William Morris’s original products.
The arts and crafts movement saw the human time period of the middle ages as being ideal social condition. They wanted to bring back the love that a craftsman us to put into his products when making them for his clients.
Due to the net reduction of cost to produce products in mass production they were much cheaper than hand crafted products. This is something William Morris wanted to change but unfortunately his dream never came true.
It is thanks to the arts and crafts movement and all its participants that later on Gordon Russell and Ambrose Heal created a campaign to include arts and crafts principles in industrial design for better mass production.
The arts and crafts movement is made up from a number of artistic styles including Japanisme, Gothic, neo Georgian and Art Neveau.
The arts and crafts movement had a revival in the late 1960’s when Habitat and Liberty & Co reproduced William Morris’s designs since some of them became public domain.
My personal view of the movement is one of respect since we to this very day make use of the principles created by the arts and crafts society. As a design student I am familiar with creating things by hand and investigating mass produced items where you can truly visualise what Morris and the others wanted to explain to the public. I apply the notions to almost all my works and make sure they appeal to my target audience while being practical.
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