DESIGN SERIES: A Return to Nature - the Arts & Crafts Movement
Nature has always inspired - you could say that the natural world is the root of all human creativity, because everything manmade can always trace itself back to it’s origins in nature. However it is rare to see human creativity pay homage to nature. This homage to the natural world is exactly what the Arts and Crafts design movement in the mid-19th century was all about - using human ingenuity to respect & protect nature.
The Arts & Crafts movement came about as a response to the Industrial Revolution, mainly in England & America. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, people had mostly lived or worked in rural settings, surrounded by the natural world. Mankind had always been in awe of the power of nature, and struggled to make a living through its storms & seasons. Now with machines, coal & steam, and the growth of organized labor under the factory system, mankind left the countrysides for the cities.
For the first time, people weren’t living surrounded by nature, but instead by brick walls in tightly packed streets with poor sanitation and little light filtration through the smog. The Arts & Crafts design movement sought to bring nature back into peoples lives through furniture, wallpaper, and textiles. Connecting us back to our roots, in harmony with our natural home.
A core tenant of the Arts & Crafts movement was also to condemn the uniformity of factory manufacturing, and to celebrate the beauty of individual creativity. The Arts & Crafts movement believed that factory work was equal to slavery, and that it was mankind’s duty from God to make full use of our own skills & talents in our everyday lives. Making something by hand, with skill and effort, was seen as the ultimate good and an expression of God-given gifts.
DEsigner SPOTLIGHT: william morris
One of the best known father’s of the Arts & Crafts movement was designer William Morris. William Morris inherited a large fortune from his father, which he invested in growing a business dedicated to the use of art & craft in everyday life and decoration. Called Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. originally, the company produced woodwork, glasswork, metal fixtures, textiles, and floor coverings. As the business expanded, William Morris began experimenting older natural dye concepts & methods, which eventually led to all company dye products exclusively being made with natural dye through non-industrial methods. He also employed tradtional artisians from around England & Ireland to come and work for him, keeping the old textile traditions alive. Morris is best know however for his wallpaper patterns, which he would design by hand and have reproduced through block-printing (a technique that had gone almost extinct in England by the 1800s, and today is most associated with India). He was deeply inspired by natural medievalist art, and you can see this inspiration throughout his designs. William Morris’ wallpapers were so popular, that he started reproducing them on textiles as well. The company was renamed what it is known by today, Morris & Co., in 1875. It is hard to overestimate the impact William Morris had on design & society as a whole - he singlehandedly revived British textile arts, inspired the Bauhaus movement, and continues to influence environmental action to this day. His textile designs are still very popular, and continue to be reproduced & enjoyed over a 100 years later.
