The Arts Crafts Movement In Europe America

Published to coincide with a major exhibition, an assessment of the international influence of the arts and crafts movement considers its reflection of modern issues and technological capabilities, surveying 260 objects from Europe and America in such areas as furniture, ceramics, and textiles.

Now in paperback, this lavishly illustrated and extensively researched book is a major contribution to a wider understanding of Arts and Crafts and an invaluable visual record of an ever-popular era of design. Leading scholars explore the varied characteristics of the regional, national and international manifestations of Arts and Crafts, looking at the work of many of the movement's leading designers. Additional material on photography, architecture and gardens, and the inclusion of painting and sculpture as integral to the movement, as well as the focus on its later emergence in Japan, all contribute to enriching our understanding and appreciation of Arts and Crafts.

Illustrated with 200 stunning photographs and encompassing objects from furniture and ceramics to jewelry and metal, this definitive work from Jo Lauria and Steve Fenton showcases some of the greatest pieces of American crafts of the last two centuries. Potter Craft

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” This quote alone from William Morris could summarise the ideology of the Arts & Crafts movement, which triggered a veritable reform in the applied arts in England. Founded by John Ruskin, then put into practice by William Morris, the Arts & Crafts movement promoted revolutionary ideas in Victorian England. In the middle of the “soulless” Industrial Era, when objects were standardised, the Arts & Crafts movement proposed a return to the aesthetic at the core of production. The work of artisans and meticulous design thus became the heart of this new ideology, which influenced styles throughout the world, translating the essential ideas of Arts & Crafts into design, architecture and painting.

On arts and crafts design movement.

Before the age of the paper book jacket, publishers issued their books in cloth-covered boards, which were stamped with designs in golf leaf and color. From around 1860, artists of the Arts and Crafts movement supplied many of the best designs. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Walter Crane led the way, and they were followed in the 1890s by Laurence Housman, Charles Ricketts and Selwyn Image, among others. Prominent Arts and Crafts architects, such as Philip Webb and C.F.A. Voysey, also designed book covers. Malcolm Haslam explores this uncharted territory, investigating not only the designs and designers, but the publishers and binders as well. He introduces some artists, little known today, whose designs filled the bookshops and bookshelves of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, and he shows how designers in Europe and America were influenced by British book covers decorated in the Arts and Crafts style. Ninety-nine of the best covers are illustrated and described, and details are given of over fifty Arts and Crafts designers who worked in commercial book production, and their marks and monograms are shown.

A major survey of architects of the Arts and Crafts movement. This major survey gives an incisively critical account of the lives, theories and work of the architects of the Arts and Crafts movement, which began in England and quickly influenced Europe and North America. It highlights the complex contradictions they tried to resolve in accommodating or rejecting the developments of the new machine age, and in meeting the cost of materials and craftsmanship, which forced them to work mainly for a wealthy elite class. This volume shows with enthusiasm and sophistication how the ideas of this fascinating movement influenced the California and Prairie Schools and Art Nouveau, and how it led ultimately to the development of neo-Georgianism and the growth of the machine-worshipping Modern movement after World War I.

This fresh look at the Arts and Crafts Movement charts its origins in reformist ideals, its engagement with commercial culture, and its ultimate place in everyday households.