Arts and Crafts Movement

Arts and Crafts Movement, movement in architecture and the decorative arts (see Interior Design, Furniture, Crafts) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that championed the values of individual handicraft during an era of increasing mass production. The movement originated in Britain and had its richest expression there, but it also made a significant impact in continental Europe and in the United States.

The movement takes its name from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, founded in 1888, but its origins go back to the middle of the 19th century. It was a very loosely ordered movement, embracing many different strands of thought, practice, and style. To some adherents it was a deeply serious matter, involving fundamental concerns about human society, but to others it was more superficial, even playful, expressing the same kind of “back to nature” ethos that has influenced many fads of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The strongest force in shaping the ideas of the movement was John Ruskin, the most influential art critic of the 19th century. He hated the kind of heavily ornate, factory-made products that dominated the Great Exhibition of 1851, and he vigorously expressed this hatred in his book The Stones of Venice (1851-1853). A social critic as well as an art critic, he condemned factory work as soulless and degrading, believing that the key to the beauty of the medieval art he loved was the delight that the individual craftsman took in its creation.

Ruskin’s ideas were put into practice by another celebrated Victorian, William Morris. He was a designer and craftsman of great versatility, as well as someone who, like Ruskin, had a keenly developed social conscience. In 1861 he founded the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., which produced a wide range of hand-made goods, including fabrics, furniture, and stained glass. He believed that art was “man’s expression of his joy in labour” and thought that good design could help to create a better society, but his ambition of producing art for the masses was fundamentally flawed, as only the rich could afford his products. No one denied that he made beautiful objects, but his critics thought he was trying to turn back the clock and standing in the way of progress.

In spite of these objections, Morris’s work and ideas were highly influential, and in the 1880s a number of organizations were founded in England to promote the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement. Among these were the Art Workers’ Guild (1884), the Home Arts and Industries Association (1884), and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society (1888). Although they shared the same broad outlook, these organizations differed considerably in their specific aims: the Home Arts and Industries Association, for example, expressed the political leanings of the movement by encouraging crafts classes for the poor; the Arts and Crafts Exhibitions Society, as its name suggests, held regular exhibitions of its members’ work, while the Art Workers’ Guild was more of an intellectual forum. One of the leading lights of the Guild was Walter Crane, who was a highly versatile artist and designer, as well as a key figure in art education, teaching at the Royal College of Art and elsewhere.

Stylistically the movement was likewise varied (contrary to what is sometimes assumed, there was no particular Arts and Crafts style). Influences came from a wide historical span and from many parts of the world. However, no matter what style they worked in, most Arts and Crafts adherents were committed to an idea of “honesty”: they liked their products openly to show what they were made of and how they worked. This often involved an emphasis on plain materials and surfaces—an attitude that has had a lasting impact on modern design. Such concerns with simplicity and integrity are also seen in buildings influenced by the movement, which typically use local materials in a modest, informal manner. Charles Voysey is generally regarded as the chief exemplar of this trend, although he was not a dogmatic adherent of Arts and Crafts ideas (he did not oppose machinery).

The movement was losing impetus in Britain by about 1910, but it had influence long after this, for example in the work of Eric Gill and studio potters such as Bernard Leach. Outside Britain, it was influential in various European countries, notably in Austria, where the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop) operated from 1903 to 1932. This was a collective studio that produced everything from jewellery to complete room interiors. Gustav Klimt was the most illustrious artist to make designs for the workshop. In the United States many artists, designers, and social reformers were affected by Arts and Crafts ideas, most notably the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. He was one of the founders of the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society in 1894.