Arts and Crafts Movement

The **Arts and Crafts movement** was an international movement in the decorative and fine arts that began in Britain and flourished in Europe and North America between about 1880 and 1920, emerging in Japan (the Mingei movement) in the 1920s. It stood for traditional craftsmanship using simple forms, and often used medieval, romantic, or folk styles of decoration. It advocated economic and social reform and was essentially anti-industrial. It had a strong influence on the arts in Europe until it was displaced by Modernism in the 1930s, and its influence continued among craft makers, designers, and town planners long afterwards.

The term was first used by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson at a meeting of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1887, although the principles and style on which it was based had been developing in England for at least twenty years. It was inspired by the ideas of architect Augustus Pugin, writer John Ruskin, and designer William Morris.

The movement developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles, and spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and North America. It was largely a reaction against the perceived impoverished state of the decorative arts at the time and the conditions in which they were produced.

## Architecture

-- Walter Crane, "Of The Revival of Design and Handicraft", in *Arts and Crafts Essays*, by Members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, 1893

Many of the leaders of the Arts and Crafts movement were trained as architects (e.g. William Morris, A. H. Mackmurdo, C. R. Ashbee, W. R. Lethaby) and it was on building that the movement had its most visible and lasting influence.

Red House, in Bexleyheath, London, designed for Morris in 1859 by architect Philip Webb, exemplifies the early Arts and Crafts style, with its well-proportioned solid forms, wide porches, steep roof, pointed window arches, brick fireplaces and wooden fittings. Webb rejected classical and other revivals of historical styles based on grand buildings, and based his design on British vernacular architecture, expressing the texture of ordinary materials, such as stone and tiles, with an asymmetrical and picturesque building composition.

The London suburb of Bedford Park, built mainly in the 1880s and 1890s, has about 360 Arts and Crafts style houses and was once famous for its Aesthetic residents. Several Almshouses were built in the Arts and Crafts style, for example, Whiteley Village, Surrey, built between 1914 and 1917, with over 280 buildings, and the Dyers Almshouses, Sussex, built between 1939 and 1971. Letchworth Garden City, the first garden city, was inspired by Arts and Crafts ideals. The first houses were designed by Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin in the vernacular style popularized by the movement and the town became associated with high-mindedness and simple living. The sandal-making workshop set up by Edward Carpenter moved from Yorkshire to Letchworth Garden City and George Orwell's jibe about "every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England" going to a socialist conference in Letchworth has become famous.

### Architectural examples

* Red House – Bexleyheath, Kent – 1859
* Wightwick Manor – Wolverhampton, England – 1887–93
* Standen – East Grinstead, England – 1894
* Blackwell – Lake District, England – 1898
* Derwent House – Chislehurst, Kent – 1899
* Stoneywell – Ulverscroft, Leicestershire – 1899
* Spade House – Sandgate, Kent – 1900
* Caledonian Estate – Islington, London – 1900–1907
* Shaw's Corner – Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire – 1902
* Pierre P. Ferry House – Seattle, Washington – 1903–1906
* Winterbourne House – Birmingham, England – 1904
* Marston House – San Diego, California – 1905
* Ramsay House – Ellensburg, Washington – 1905
* Debenham House – Holland Park, London – 1905-07
* Robert R. Blacker House – Pasadena, California – 1907
* Gamble House – Pasadena, California – 1908
* Thorsen House – Berkeley, California – 1909
* Rodmarton Manor – Rodmarton, near Cirencester, Gloucestershire – 1909–29
* Plewlands Avenue (Private houses) Edinburgh – 1920

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Brenda M. King, *Silk and Empire*
2. ↑ Moses N. Ikiugu and Elizabeth A. Ciaravino, *Psychosocial Conceptual Practice models in Occupational Therapy*
3. ↑ Alan Crawford, *C. R. Ashbee: Architect, Designer & Romantic Socialist*, Yale University Press, 2005.
4. ↑ Wendy Kaplan and Alan Crawford, *The Arts & Crafts Movement in Europe & America: Design for the Modern World*, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5. ↑ Victoria and Albert Museum. Vam.ac.uk. Retrieved on 2010-08-28.
6. ↑ George Orwell, *The Road to Wigan Pier*