WK 1 . Origins of Modernism: Arts & Crafts + Aesthetics Movement 1880 - 1920

Texts . The link below will return you back to course materials found on bb.cazenovia.edu

William Morris and the birth of the Arts & Crafts Movement

Further Readings:

The Arts & Crafts Movement Overview

Arts & Crafts Movement PDF

William Morris design for "Trellis" wallpaper, 1862

1760 - 1840

• The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Europe and the US of machinery
• Transformation from agricultural to urbanized and indistrialized society
• Caused impoverished conditions of workers, and yes, children

• Ned Ludd (b. Edward Ludlam) a weaver in an English textile factory
• 1779 Ludd destroys textile machinery as a form of protest in a fit of rage
• The term "Luddite" gets the name from this event and later becomes a secret organization of English textile workers in the 19th century 

1837 - 1901

Victorian Era During Queen Victoria's reign

> 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901<

1914 - 1918 

WWI ravishing of England and other European cities

1880 - 1920
The Arts & Crafts Movement

• Movement begins in England as a reaction against Industrialization 
• Decorative and Fine Arts movement > expands to North America to eventually become an international aesthetic movement
• The reaction against a perceived decline in standards that reformers associated with machinery and factory production
• The reaction against preconceived notions that the impoverished had to live with such "horror"

Characteristics

Importance of high craftsmanship 

Use of simple forms from nature

Influenced by romantic themes and folk imagery

Excessive ornamentation and visual movement  in flowing designs

By 1930s Modernism displaces it

PDF Reading: The Story of Design: Arts and Crafts Movement and Aesthetic Movement

RE: William Morris and the birth of the Arts and Crafts Movement p.141 > 147

"...where one could either obtain or get produced work of a genuine or beautiful character." Morris c. 1861

"...The venture had an underlying social mission of rescuing workers from the wage slavery of mindless machine-watching and restoring a sense of "joy through labor"by giving them greater creative control over their work." p. 141

William Morris 

• British textile designer, poet, novelist, translator, and socialist activist
• Associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement 
• Contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts 
• Textile designer / wall paper
• Against Industrialization form of products 
• Morris interests was a return to the handmade methods of production
• Establishes Morris & Company, reaction to 'high clutter' of the Victorian era > new art interiors during the fin-de-siècle years (French term: end of the 19th c.)
• Morris wanted to produce affordable items that he described as "Good Citizen's Furniture" The handmade became expensive to produce

Textile printing at Morris & Co.'s Merton Abbey works, c. 1890

Advertisement, from William Morris & Co. Society.org

Morris & Co. textile

From the William Morris Society.org
Designed by Philip Webb c.1870

Adjustable Morris Chair

Lighting design by William Arthur Smith Benson c. 1900 for Morris & Co.

• Democratic Design: Aimed for simple functional beauty in furniture that was crafted by creatively engaged (and thus, happy) workers
• Morris taught a holistic approach to create aesthetic, social, and environmentally friendly production

Would become discouraged by the idea of his socialized intentions to the manifestation of the objects he desired would have to be produced with $ and purchased by the rich

p. 144
"Morris lectured extensively and tirelessly promoted the believes that decoration should only be employed if it had a use or a meaning and that the beauty of an object was derived from being in harmony with nature, rather than from mimicking it."

Morris hated to see old buildings torn down and in 1877 established the influential Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), nicknamed "anti-scrape"

p. 146

For Morris, the Medieval period (European 5th to 15th centuries) provided a 'blueprint' for design and how it was manufactured. Where workers applied their creative skills through Guilds.

His hopes of creating a utopia inspired by nature, that was created by craftspeople who produced beautiful objects

"Useful work" rather than "Useless toil"

The Nature of Gothic by John Ruskin
Printed by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press in 1892

Writers and print material flourished 

John Ruskin, writer

Ruskins' Nature of the Gothic from the Stones of Venice, Vol.11

 excerpt from above Ruskin page printed by Morris

"We are now about to enter upon the examination of that school of Venetian architecture which forms an intermediate step between the Byzantine and Gothic forms, but which I did find may be conveniently considered in its connection with the latter style. In order that we may discern the tendency of each step of this change, it will be wise in the outset to endeavour to form some general idea of its final result. We know already what the Byzantine architecture is from which the transition was made, but we ought to know something of the Gothic architecture into which it led. I shall endeavour therefore to give the reader in this chapter an idea, at once broad and definite, of the true nature of Gothic architecture, properly so called; not of that of Venice only, but of universal Gothic."

Gustav Stickley 

American furniture manufacturer, design leader, publisher and the chief spokesperson for the American Craftsman style, an extension of the British Arts and Crafts movement.

b. 1858 dies in Syracuse NY 1942

Gustav Stickley Mission Armchair

Stickley Mission console

p. 146 "...a real art, created for the people by the people, is able not only to beautify, but also to simplify life, to unify the interests of all sorts and conditions of men, and finally to realize the meaning of the word commonwealth." 

From the mind of Gustav Stickley

RE: The Aesthetic Movement: The winds of Reform 

p. 148 > 155

• Stems from the Gothic Revival period
• "Art for art's sake, rather than Craft for craft's sake"
• Inspired by Japanese, Morocco, the Middle East, Turkey, Persia, the exotic (non-Western worlds)
• Touched all things designed, objects, architecture, ways of life
• Great Exhibition of 1851 showcased many non-Western objects "hugely important for the transfer of culture and ideas from one nation to another, as each country used its dedicated pavilion to highlight the very best industrial and craft endeavors. 
• Japan design harmoniously balanced form and function

• Japanese Shinto belief system that objects hold Kami, allowing spirits to dwell in things

L   Hokusai's Great Wave c. 1829 - 1933
Collection Rijksmuseum
R   Van Gogh's Starry Night, 1889
Collection MoMA, NYC

RE: The Guardian: How Hokusai's Great Wave crashed into Van Gogh's Starry Night

• Post Impressionist artists tremendously inspired by Japanese creative objects from the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1878, especially woodcuts for their hard edge contour lines and contrasting color - among them Cezanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Lautrec

• London 1862 Farmer and Rogers' Oriental Warehouse opened on Regent Street -- Liberty & Co. opens 1875 selling works of art from Japan including silks, imported furniture, clothing, etc. 

p. 150 "...1870's the company began manufacturing Anglo-Japanese furniture, created by William Godwin in accordance with fashionable taste, alongside "Old English" designs."  

• London becomes the hot-bed for the Aesthetic Movement - major designers who influenced the movement lived there including Godwin, Rossetti, American born artist Whistler

Edward William Godwin Anglo-Japanese sideboard/display cabinet c. 1867

Aubrey Berardsley print 

"The Peacock Skirt" 1893

illustrating "Salome" by Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, and playwright

• Japanese influence + peacock feathers + sunflowers having a symbolic meaning of "dedicated love and purity of thought" and sunflowers: beauty and immortality 
• 
  

p.153

"...Aesthetic Movement was far more than exoticism and symbolism... the movement heralded a new elementalism that was both highly refined in terms of aesthetics and function and ideal for products intended for mass production: the simpler the product, the easier it was to manufacture."

p. 154

"...The aesthetic movement prompted Americans to make the mental leap that beautiful surroundings, in and of themselves, would elevate the soul." 

This belief helped to bolster the importance of design within the public consciousness and brought the design-reform debate to a wider audience. 

Aesthetic Movement was important to bring about design reform = the look of things is as important in relation to practical function and underlying symbolism

Tiffany Studios

Dale Dale for Tiffany Studios

TIFFANY STUDIOS: Dragonfly table lamp