Editing Arts and Crafts movement (section)

==Origins and influences==
===Design reform===
The Arts and Crafts movement emerged from the attempt to reform design and decoration in mid-19th century Britain. It was a reaction against a perceived decline in standards that the reformers associated with machinery and factory production. Their critique was sharpened by the items that they saw in [[the Great Exhibition of 1851]], which they considered to be excessively [[wiktionary:ornate|ornate]], artificial, and ignorant of the qualities of the materials used. Art historian [[Nikolaus Pevsner]] writes that the exhibits showed "ignorance of that basic need in creating patterns, the integrity of the surface", as well as displaying "vulgarity in detail".<ref name=pevsner/>

[[File:Kelmscott Press - The Nature of Gothic by John Ruskin (first page).jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|''The Nature of Gothic'' by [[John Ruskin]], printed by [[William Morris]] at the [[Kelmscott Press]] in 1892 in his [[Golden Type]] inspired by the 15th-century printer [[Nicolas Jenson]]. This chapter from ''[[The Stones of Venice (book)|The Stones of Venice]]'' was a sort of manifesto for the Arts and Crafts movement.]]
Design reform began with Exhibition organizers [[Henry Cole (inventor)|Henry Cole]] (1808–1882), [[Owen Jones (architect)|Owen Jones]] (1809–1874), [[Matthew Digby Wyatt]] (1820–1877), and [[Richard Redgrave]] (1804–1888),<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/w/wallpaper-design-reform/| title = V&A, "Wallpaper Design Reform"}}</ref> all of whom deprecated excessive ornament and impractical or badly-made things.{{sfn|Naylor|1971|p=21}} The organizers were "unanimous in their condemnation of the exhibits."{{sfn|Naylor|1971|p=20}} Owen Jones, for example, complained that "the architect, the upholsterer, the paper-stainer, the weaver, the calico-printer, and the potter" produced "novelty without beauty, or beauty without intelligence."{{sfn|Naylor|1971|p=20}} From these criticisms of manufactured goods emerged several publications that set out what the writers considered to be the correct principles of design. Richard Redgrave's ''Supplementary Report on Design'' (1852) analysed the principles of design and ornament and pleaded for "more logic in the application of decoration."{{sfn|Naylor|1971|p=21}}

Other works followed in a similar vein, such as Wyatt's ''Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century'' (1853), [[Gottfried Semper]]'s ''Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst'' ("Science, Industry and Art") (1852), [[Ralph Wornum]]'s ''Analysis of Ornament'' (1856), Redgrave's ''Manual of Design'' (1876), and Jones's ''Grammar of Ornament'' (1856).{{sfn|Naylor|1971|p=21}} The ''Grammar of Ornament'' was particularly influential, liberally distributed as a student prize and running into nine reprints by 1910.{{sfn|Naylor|1971|p=21}}

Jones declared that ornament "must be secondary to the thing decorated", that there must be "fitness in the ornament to the thing ornamented", and that wallpapers and carpets must not have any patterns "suggestive of anything but a level or plain".<ref>Quoted in Nikolaus Pevsner, ''Pioneers of Modern Design''</ref> A fabric or wallpaper in the Great Exhibition might be decorated with a natural motif made to look as real as possible, whereas these writers advocated flat and simplified natural motifs. Redgrave insisted that "style" demanded sound construction before ornamentation, and a proper awareness of the quality of materials used. "''Utility'' must have precedence over ornamentation."{{sfn|Naylor|1971|p=22}}

However, the design reformers of the mid-19th century did not go as far as the designers of the Arts and Crafts movement. They were more concerned with ornamentation than construction, they had an incomplete understanding of methods of manufacture,{{sfn|Naylor|1971|p=22}} and they did not criticise industrial methods as such. By contrast, the Arts and Crafts movement was as much a movement of social reform as design reform, and its leading practitioners did not separate the two.

===A. W. N. Pugin===
[[File:The Grange, Ramsgate 1.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|right|[[Augustus Pugin|Pugin]]'s house "The Grange" in [[Ramsgate]], from 1843. Its simplified Gothic style, adapted to domestic building, helped shape the architecture of the Arts and Crafts movement.]]

Some of the ideas of the movement were anticipated by [[Augustus Pugin]] (1812–1852), a leader in the [[Gothic Revival architecture|Gothic Revival in architecture]]. For example, he advocated truth to material, structure, and function, as did the Arts and Crafts artists.<ref name=V&A /> Pugin articulated the tendency of social critics to compare the faults of modern society with the Middle Ages,<ref name=hill>Rosemary Hill, ''God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain'', London: Allen Lane, 2007</ref> such as the sprawling growth of cities and the treatment of the poor – a tendency that became routine with Ruskin, Morris, and the Arts and Crafts movement. His book ''Contrasts'' (1836) drew examples of bad modern buildings and town planning in contrast with good medieval examples, and his biographer [[Rosemary Hill]] notes that he "reached conclusions, almost in passing, about the importance of craftsmanship and tradition in architecture that it would take the rest of the century and the combined efforts of Ruskin and Morris to work out in detail." She describes the spare furnishings which he specified for a building in 1841, "rush chairs, oak tables", as "the Arts and Crafts interior in embryo."<ref name=hill />

===John Ruskin===
The Arts and Crafts philosophy was derived in large measure from [[John Ruskin]]'s social criticism, deeply influenced by the work of [[Thomas Carlyle]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Blakesley |first=Rosalind P. |date=2006 |title=The arts and crafts movement |url=https://archive.org/details/artscraftsmoveme0000blak |url-access=registration |publication-place=London |publisher=Phaidon |isbn=978-0-7148-3849-6 |oclc=1147708297}}</ref> Ruskin related the moral and social health of a nation to the qualities of its architecture and to the nature of its work. Ruskin considered the sort of mechanized production and division of labour that had been created in the [[industrial revolution]] to be "servile labour", and he thought that a healthy and moral society required independent workers who designed the things that they made. He believed factory-made works to be "dishonest," and that handwork and craftsmanship merged dignity with labour.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.arts-crafts.com/archive/jruskin.shtml|title=John Ruskin – Artist Philosopher Writer – Arts & Crafts Leader|website=www.arts-crafts.com|access-date=16 March 2019|archive-date=18 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191218182444/http://www.arts-crafts.com/archive/jruskin.shtml|url-status=dead}}</ref> 

On the artistic side Ruskin was influenced by his contemporary [[Eugène Viollet-le-Duc|Viollet le Duc]] whom he taught to all of his pupils. In a letter to one of his pupils Ruskin writes : "There is only one book of any value and that is the Dictionnary of Viollet le Duc. Everyone should learn French".  And according to some Ruskin's influence on Arts and Crafts was supplanted in 1860 by that of Viollet le Duc.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brock Kennedy |first=Travis |title=The great flaw in the man |date=2018 |publisher=Columbia University NY }}</ref> 

His followers favoured craft production over industrial manufacture and were concerned about the loss of traditional skills, but they were more troubled by the effects of the [[factory system]] than by machinery itself.<ref name=sarsby>Jacqueline Sarsby" Alfred Powell: Idealism and Realism in the Cotswolds", ''Journal of Design History'', Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 375–397</ref> William Morris's idea of "handicraft" was essentially work without any division of labour rather than work without any sort of machinery.<ref name=pye>David Pye, ''The Nature and Art of Workmanship'', Cambridge University Press, 1968</ref> Morris admired Ruskin's ''The Seven Lamps of Architecture'' and ''The Stones of Venice'' and had read ''Modern Painters'', but he did not share Ruskin's admiration for [[J. M. W. Turner]]<ref>Tim Hilton, ''John Ruskin'', Vol.2</ref> and his writings on art indicate a lack of interest in easel painting as such. On his side, Ruskin dissented firmly from the idea that became Arts-and-Crafts orthodoxy, that decoration should be flat and should not represent three-dimensional forms.<ref>John Ruskin, ''The Two Paths''</ref>

===William Morris===
[[File: William Morris age 53.jpg|thumb|upright|William Morris, a textile designer who was a key influence on the Arts and Crafts movement]]
[[William Morris]] (1834–1896) was the towering figure in late 19th-century design and the main influence on the Arts and Crafts movement. The aesthetic and social vision of the movement grew out of ideas that he developed in the 1850s with the [[Birmingham Set]] – a group of students at the [[University of Oxford]] including [[Edward Burne-Jones]], who combined a love of [[Romantic literature]] with a commitment to social reform.{{sfn|Naylor|1971|pp=96–97}} [[John William Mackail]] notes that, for the Set, "Carlyle's ''[[Past and Present (book)|Past and Present]]'' stood alongside of [Ruskin's] ''[[Modern Painters]]'' as inspired and absolute truth."<ref>Mackail, J. W. (2011). ''The Life of William Morris''. New York: Dover Publications. p. 38. {{ISBN|978-0-486-28793-5}}.</ref> The medievalism of [[Thomas Malory|Malory]]'s ''[[Morte d'Arthur]]'' set the standard for their early style.{{sfn|Wildman|1998|p=49}} In Burne-Jones' words, they intended to "wage Holy warfare against the age".{{sfn|Naylor|1971|p=97}}

[[File:Philip Webb's Red House in Upton.jpg|thumb|William Morris's [[Red House, Bexleyheath|Red House]] in Bexleyheath, designed by Philip Webb and completed in 1860; one of the most significant buildings of the Arts and Crafts movement<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/red-house#Overview| title = National Trust, "Iconic Arts and Crafts home of William Morris"}}</ref>]]

Morris began experimenting with various crafts and designing furniture and interiors.{{sfn|MacCarthy|2009}} He was personally involved in manufacture as well as design,{{sfn|MacCarthy|2009}} which was the hallmark of the Arts and Crafts movement. Ruskin had argued that the separation of the intellectual act of design from the manual act of physical creation was both socially and aesthetically damaging. Morris further developed this idea, insisting that no work should be carried out in his workshops before he had personally mastered the appropriate techniques and materials, arguing that "without dignified, creative human occupation people became disconnected from life".{{sfn|MacCarthy|2009}}

[[File: Morris and Company Weaving at Merton Abbey.jpg|thumb|The weaving shed in Morris & Co's factory at [[Merton, London (parish)|Merton]], which opened in the 1880s]]

In 1861, Morris began making furniture and decorative objects commercially, modelling his designs on medieval styles and using bold forms and strong colours. His patterns were based on flora and fauna, and his products were inspired by the vernacular or domestic traditions of the British countryside. Some were deliberately left unfinished in order to display the beauty of the materials and the work of the craftsman, thus creating a rustic appearance. Morris strove to unite all the arts within the decoration of the home, emphasizing nature and simplicity of form.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/acam/hd_acam.htm|title=The Arts and Crafts Movement in America|date=2019|website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|access-date=16 March 2019}}</ref>