The Arts and Crafts Movement

William Morris - (1834-1896)

The arts and crafts movement was made up of a group of forward designers and architects who wanted to change design and be influential enough to change society by returning to hand crafting methods. Disgusted by the effects of industrialism both on the environment and society and the design of poorly manufactured products by machinery, designers of this time such as William Morris wanted to advocate change and a return to simpler hand made, good quality products was underway. 

William De Morgan - Tiling

This group of creatives had lost trust in industrial production not only because of low quality products but also due to the fact that skilled craftsmen were being turned into factory working slaves, this lead efforts to take things back to basics with high quality products which were also aesthetically pleasing.

Gustav Stickley - Hand Crafted Chair

The beginnings of this movement found great inspiration from the pre- raphaelite brotherhood but the greatest inspiration came from  the progressive ideas of Augustus Pugin and John Ruskin. Morris being one of the first to put their theories into practice did not embrace industrial production rather wanted to reform it. The early members promoted democracy  and social unity through art. What concerned Morris most was the was the industrial process was divided as labourers were undermined as well as the arts. Morris believed in machine production only if the end product was high quality and the process lessened the wroker’s burden. The downfall to his theories and practice was that the handcrafted objects by Morris & Co were sold at a much higher cost due to labour hours and thought involved, this meant only the wealthiest members of society could afford and purchase these items.

In the second phase of the Arts and crafts movement these later members such as Charles Voysey  and Charles R. Ashbee still held on to Morris’ vernacular views although they argued that such designs which were high quality and hand crafted were widely unavailable to common people and were unattainable without machinery. Ashbee went as far as saying that Morris was too preoccupied with the past.

The movement remained popular until the war and its main traits such as simplicity, utility and using design in order to achieve social change were highly influential to early members of the Modern Movement. During the 20th century the movement’s spirit survived reflecting through work of a group of designers allies of the Craft Revival.

The example above is a rocking chair which draws inspiration from the arts and crafts movement . In my opinion its a representation of authentic hand crafted furniture. With joining methods such as the mortise and tenon and vintage oak it acts as a trip back in the time of Gustav stickily and his hand crafted chairs. Las Cruces is a chair comprising of solid ash and mission oak veneer coloured in a deep henna tone.