Arts Crafts Design

Originally published in 1916 when the Arts & Crafts movement was in its heyday, this is a virtual textbook of materials, color, techniques, and designs. Arts & Crafts Design is a practical guide to the creation of high-quality, high-style furnishings through the industrial arts. "In this relativistic age in which de gustilrie non disputandum est (it is undisputed that each person has their own sense of taste), it is refreshing to look back to the early twentieth century when at least a few people were certain that there are universal rules for good art and also that they had themselves mastered these precepts and could pass them on to a society that loved commonly held values. William H. Varnum was one of those people. He offers here a textbook that will, if followed, allow students to 'directly apply well-recognized principles of design to specific materials and problems.' No situation esthetics here. In fact, he followed these principles in designing the logos representing his tools and ratio system on the cover of his book. "The publisher of this new edition has added a useful foreword and substitued the title Arts and Crafts Design for the original (1916) Industrial Arts Design, an appropriate modification since the term "industrial" suggests factory production whereas Varnum referred to objects that today we call "Craftsman"--Rookwood pottery, Stickley furniture, Jarvie candlesticks, etc. A delightful touch is that Varnum included pictures of these objects alongside the principles by which he believed they were designed. Varnum's book offers an enlightening, if somewhat technical, insight into thinking about design before World War I. There is no doubt that the Arts and Crafts period during which the principles of simple beauty married so neatly with function can be better understood and appreciated today through Varnum's perceptions." Robert Winter

Each chapter of this book examines a different facet of this aesthetic, beginning with its European origins and proceeding to American classics, including California's Mission style. The book highlights the work of such influential designers as Gustav Stickley, L & J.G. Stickley, Charles Voysey, Greene & Greene, George Ohr, Tiffany, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Charles Rohlfs, among others, and features Arts and Crafts standards, such as the Morris chair, the Stickley settle, the Tiffany lamp, and the Fulper bowl, all displayed in a variety of contemporary interiors.

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.

From William Morris and the roots of the Arts & Crafts movement, through Gustav Stickley, the Prairie School, and including contemporary pieces, this book celebrates the classic furniture--and the master craftsmen who made it. 500 photos.

"Price, a disciple of Frank Furness who practiced in Philadelphia from 1883 to 1916, established the character of two of the nation's greatest resorts, Atlantic City and Miami, thus shaping the architecture of the Roaring Twenties.

Briefly describes the Arts and Crafts movement and shows examples of designs for pottery and dinnerware

“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.

Illustrated with original photographs of Shipman's superb gardens - many by photographer Mattie Edwards Hewitt which have never been previously published - and new photographs by Carol Betsch which were specially commissioned for this volume, the book documents in fascinating detail the life and work of one of America's most important and influential garden designers.