Arts & Crafts

The Arts and Crafts movement was a highly influential design movement which emerged during the 1860s exerting real influence from the 1880s through to the 1930s.

The leading light was William Morris (1834-1896) who put into practice principles discussed by John Ruskin (1819-1900) and Augustus Pugin (1812-1852) in their writing. The term ‘Arts & Crafts’ was coined by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson in 1887 at a preliminary meeting of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.

The movement was born out of concern about the impact of massive industrialisation on design, traditional skills and the lives of ordinary people. It championing traditional craftsmanship and economic and social ideals seeking to turn the home into a work of art through advocating the reform of art at every level. The movement can be summed up by a quote from William Morris: “Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”.

Arts and Crafts objects are characterised by being simple without excessive decoration with their construction methods still visible emphasising the quality of the materials used. Practitioners called this “truth to material”. These design principles were a reaction against the ornate and often artificial items shown at the Great Exhibition in 1851 which ignored the qualities of the materials used. Many designer-makers set up workshops in rural locations and revived traditional techniques.

Patterns were often inspired by British flora and fauna and motifs were drawn from ‘simpler’ times using medieval, romantic or rustic themes.
It became an international movement, and whilst the designs were different in different countries they were united by the underpinning ideals. It spread across America and Europe and emerged as the Folk Crafts movement in Japan.

By the end of the 19th Century the movement had influenced furniture, woodwork, stained glass, jewellery and metalwork, enameling and ceramics, rug making and weaving as well as the fine arts and architecture, graphics, illustration, book making and the decorative arts.