THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENTS

The Arts and Crafts Movement
A comprehensive survey of the popular Arts and Crafts Movement.Rosalind P Blakesley

A comprehensive survey of all aspects of the popular Arts and Crafts movement, which was at its height between 1880-1910. The movement had a worldwide influence on all areas of the decorative arts, architecture, cabinet making and even garden design
This new study charts the course of the movement in all media, including painting, craft and architecture, and examines the theory and philosophy behind a variety of seminal pieces
Includes fine examples of work by William Morris, Charles Robert Ashbee, Edward Burne Jones, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Greene & Greene and Philip Webb, alongside lesser known examples from as far afield as Finland and Russia
Features extensive archival material, previously unpublished works and groundbreaking new research
Offers a thorough overview of a highly popular intellectual and artistic movement that will appeal to academics and collectors alike

In this book Rosalind Blakesley explores the common ideas that give cohesion to a movement of otherwise bewildering breadth and stylistic heterogeneity. At the origins of the movement was a reaction against industrialization, the long-standing division between traditional crafts and Fine Art and the over-elaborate ornamentation which disguised an object or building’s true ‘function’. Early British Arts and Crafts practitioners campaigned for a revival of old craft techniques, for the elevation of the applied arts and for ‘honesty’ in design, ideas that were picked up and developed across Europe and the United States, with national variants quickly emerging. Germany, for example, recognized the potential of industrial techniques and experimented with standardization in design; in Finland, then annexed to Russia, Arts and Crafts was allied to the search for self-expression and a national style in art. Examining both acknowledged Arts and Crafts centres and lesser-known communities, Rosalind Blakesley concludes her authoritative and accessible survey with an evaluation of the Movement’s significance in the twenty-first century.