The Arts and Crafts Movement began in mid-19th century England in reaction to industrialization and mass production. It advocated for honest construction using high quality materials and traditional craftsmanship. Designers like William Morris drew inspiration from medieval styles and guilds. Typical Arts and Crafts homes featured local materials, inglenook fireplaces, and oak furniture. While the movement sought good design for all, its products were often expensive and bought by the wealthy due to their emphasis on craftsmanship over mass production.

1. Arts and Crafts Style
By the mid-1800s in England, the ideas of architect A.W.N. Pugin, especially those
espousing “honest construction” in architecture and furniture design, and the purity of
Gothic style, considerable influenced the writer and art critic John Ruskin, and the
architect and poet William Morris, leading to the formation of the Arts & Crafts
Movement. They believed in the virtue of honest design, top quality materials,
craftsmanship and traditional skills, and the importance of beautiful surroundings.
Maintaining that the Middle Ages was the golden age of craftsmanship, the craftsmen of
the Arts & Crafts Movement formed themselves into medieval-style guilds. In fact,
William Morris’s use of natural forms translated into flat patterns was at once a synthesis
of medievalism and modernism, and he was the 19th century's most influential designer.
The Arts & Crafts Movement was a reaction not only against the mechanisation used in
industrial production but also against industrial society. It grew out of the individualism
associated with the revival of the Gothic style.
A typical Arts & Crafts cottage would be low-ceilinged, be built of local materials,
and contain an inglenook fireplace, ledge-and-brace oak doors, wide polished
floorboards, oak furniture and stencilled friezes.
The wish to provide good design for all and to survive in a competitive world led
increasingly to the use of standard parts and batch production methods in the Arts &

2. Crafts workshops. Nevertheless, the products were bought largely by the rich and
sophisticated because of their style as well as their cost.
One of the most successful designers of the time was the architect C.F.A. Voysey. A
member of the Arts & Crafts Movement, he soon developed his own lighter, more elegant
style. He is regarded as one of the English designers who pioneered the style that
developed into Art Nouveau, but Voysey himself dismissed Art Nouveau as “revolting”.
In the 1860s and 1870s a number of English architects, notable Richard Norman Shaw,
reacted against the Gothic revival and sought inspiration in vernacular architecture
(leading to what was known as the Old English style) and the late 17th century,
particularly the architecture of Christopher Wren (resulting in the Queen Anne revival
style). The Queen Anne style house, in red brick with a tiled roof, was a mixture of
classical features, Georgian ash windows and Dutch gables. Queen Anne revival furniture
was also produced. Another highly influential turn-of-the-century British architect
designing houses in the Queen Anne style was Edwin Lutyens.
Arts and Crafts Style in brief:
 Plain and simple painted walls in white, blues, greens, woodwork in same colour;
 Polished oak or pine floors;
 Introduction of picture rails and plate rails.
The Aesthetic Movement
This was another reform movement that arose in the last quarter of the century in
England and America. Reacting against what it described as the “philistine” taste of the
Victorian era, the Aesthetic Movement believed in art for art’s sake. It denied, however,
that art had any social or moral value, and this set it apart from the Arts & Crafts
Movement. The Aesthetic style also tended to be more exotic and sophisticated in
approach; it was this movement that led to the use of white walls and ceilings to give a
feeling of space. It was influenced by japonaiserie, the fashion for Japanese decoration
which had followed the opening of Japanese ports to trade with the West in the middle of
the century. The architect E.W. Godwin was the leading designer in the Anglo-Japanese
style and one of the principal figures of the Aesthetic Movement.
Arthur Liberty, who founded his London store in 1875, promoted the Japanese style with
blue-and-white porcelain, peacock feathers, etc., and these in turn influenced fabrics. For
example, the stylized textile designs of E.W. Godwin incorporating fans and roundels
were taken from Japanese blue-and-white porcelain.

3. Arts and Crafts Furnitureand Fabrics
Arts & Crafts seating included close-covered bench seats and ladder-back chairs with
rush seats. The simplicity and solidity of Philip Webb’s austere oak furniture epitomised
Arts & Crafts furniture. Dark oak was used for these pieces.
William Morris was very interested in textile design and favoured handblocked
printing. Influenced not only by medieval art but also by Islamic, Persian and Italian
Renaissance textiles, Morris believed that motifs from nature could be flattened and
stylized, but that they should still look as though they were growing naturally.
Arts and Crafts Furniture and Fabrics in brief:
 Bleached oak much in favour;
 Ladderback chairs and settles, all with rush seats;
 Linens, cottons, cretonnes patterned with flowers and animals from Morris & Co.
and Liberty.
Arts and Crafts Colours
The Arts & Crafts Movement had a subtle palette of olive green, hyacinth blue, plum,
burgundy, lemon yellow, taupe, old rose, ivory, pale grey and white. In collaboration
with Thomas Wardle, the most skilled British dyer of the late 19th century, William
Morris revived the art of using vegetable dye. Morris and Wardle experimented with four
basic colours, red, yellow, brown and blue, and produced indigo, pale orange, a grey-
green, brown orange and garnet red.
Arts and Crafts Windows
Casement, curtain hung on pole or with frilled valance.
Arts and Crafts Lighting
Hanging metal pendant oil and electric lamps with glass shades;
Table lamps of copper or brass.

4. Arts and Crafts Buildings
The Red House, Standen, Cragside, the Orchard, Chorley Wood, Wightwick Manor,
Kelmscott Manor.