Arts & Crafts Movement
The notion that the Arts & Crafts Movement was or is a design style is not correct. It was born as a philosophy, a way of thinking about a made object.
The thinking had three basic tenets:
· The object should be made using superb materials
· The workmanship in its making should be of the highest order
· Simplicity should be the design criterion
William Morris (1834-1896) is credited with being the movement’s guiding light. Doubtless, his writing, lecturing and deep involvement in eleven different crafts give historians much to work with but there were many other names that could fill a library with their endeavors. Names such as C.F.A Voysey, Edwin Lutyens, Phillip Webb, Ernest Gimson and the brothers Barnsley, to name a few. You might say what was happening in England in the latter part of the 19th century was the birth of the industrial designer as well as a new insight on the part of architects and their work.
John Galsworthy, in his Forsyte Saga novels outlines these changes to great effect. You can get a feel for the resistance of the “old guard” lifestyle and aesthetic to the thinking and aesthetic of what was to become the Arts & Crafts movement in dramatic telling by watching the BBC series by the same name on Amazon Prime Video, originally broadcast in the US on PBS as part of the Masterpiece series.