Michael Duffy, History of 19th & 20th Century Design, East Carolina University, 2003.
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Design Reform at Mid-Century
By the 1830s in Britain, there were questions about the standards of design in the minor arts and crafts. There was some concern that a taste was lacking among the middle class consumers. In 1835, with leadership from Sir Robert Peel (a cotton industrialist from Lancashire) in the English House of Commons, the Select Committee of Arts & Manufacturers was established. The committee held hearings from manufacturers and educators in Britain and abroad and concluded that a central School of Design in London with branches elsewhere should be established for the purpose of producing graduates who could go to work for industry right away and improve standards of design. British manufacturers had complained about the lack of available designers, the prevalence of plagiarism and the high cost of foreign patterns and designs for their industry. The first School of Design was established in 1837 with its headquarters at Somerset House in London, and a small budget to purchase books, plaster casts of ancient sculpture and examples of manufactured items. During the 1840s part of this collection toured the country to eleven new provincial branch schools. Henry Cole took over the London School of Design in 1852 and established 80 regional schools by 1860. The school was relocated at South Kensington, close by the South Kensington Museum, the recently-established principal museum of decorative arts. The Museum and the Royal College of Arts, both in the area around London, collaborated with the School to make the latter a major training center for young designers.
Henry Cole, himself, opened Felix Summerly's Art Manufacturers, the first of many art manufacturers, in order to bring art and industry together. This company created a tea-set that was submitted to the London Society of Arts' 1846 competition for the production of "objects of everyday use." The tea set won a silver medal. To create his bone china set, Cole rigorously researched the design and style of this service by studying ancient Greek earthenware at the British Museum. He also contracted with Herbert Minton of Minton and Company (the major ceramics manufacturer in Britain at the time) to produce wares for the company. Cole went to Minton's factory to observe the manufacturing process. For the award-winning tea set, he had spent three days at the factory "superintending the throwing, turning and molding" of the set. He said that he wished to produce an article combining "as much beauty and ornament as was commensurate with cheapness." He was concerned with the practicality of being able to pour from the milk jug "at both angles, right and left, which requires only a motion of the wrist, while the usual method needs the lifting of the arm." The plate "is smaller than usual in the rim because much size in that part is needless."
Summerly's Art Manufactures was run by Henry Cole in order to give consumers household products in ceramic wares, metal utensils and wares, glass wares and furniture that would combine historical styles, current industrial technology and the creativity of fine artists like the painters Richard Redgrave and Daniel Maclise, and the sculptor John Bell. Several manufacturers like Mintons, Wedgewoods (both ceramics) Hollands (cabinet-makers), Coalbrookdale Co.(metals) and Joseph Rodgers (cutlers) were committed to helping make the products that were designed by the new company. Summerly's Art Manufactures, founded in 1846, exhibited nearly 100 items at the third annual exhibition of British manufacturers held at Somerset House of the Royal Society of Arts in 1848. Illus. 42 Shows their award-winning bone china service. In Illus. 43 we see the superbly enamelled and gilt water carafe designed by Redgrave and made by J.F. Christy for Summerly's Art Manufactures.
The Firm was formed on 11 April, 1861. The partners were Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Charles Faulkner,Peter Marshall, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Philip Webb and William Morris. Brown already had experience designing costumes and furniture, while Burne-Jones was known for his stained-glass paintings. Webb was an architect and designer of furniture and table glass. Faulkner was a mathematician and engineer. Marshall was a surveyor and sanitary engineer. Each partner held a share of ƒ20, while the Firm received ƒ100 from Morris's mother. The members banded together as an association of artists who would run a business in decorative arts. They were influenced by Summerly's Art Manufactures.The Firm wanted to go further than Summerly's. It would design, manufacture and market its products. Morris and his friends at the Firm worked with manufacturers like James Powell & Sons, suppliers of plate and table glass, and Jeffrey & Company, manufacturers of wood blocks and metal plate printers (textile suppliers).
In the entrance hall and stairway of Morris's Red House, we see a lightening of the heavy Gothic style of Pugin, based now on flat, rectilinear planes, a clear division of parts, and minimal curves and handles (iron and brass). Illus. 44. Webb avoided ornamental veneers and inlays, using mostly oak with some walnut and mahogany [Queen Anne style modified]. The Firm liked country models of rush-seated, turned wood and simple slat-backed armchairs, corner chairs and settees. Painted black and simply curved in fancy Sheraton styles were concessions to popular taste.
At the International Exhibition of 1862 held at South Kensington, in the London region, the Firm rented two stands with 900 square feet of space at £25 to publicly introduce the company's work in the Medieval Court exhibition area. The furniture included a gilded bookcase, a cabinet (designed by Webb and painted by Morris with scenes from the legend of Saint George), an iron bedstead, a sideboard (chest with drawers and doors), washstand, sofa, copper candlesticks, painted tiles and pieces of jewelry. Also present was the large cabinet, commissioned from the Firm by John Seddon for his Whitehall office chambers. Illus. 45. This example of large office furniture emphasized heavily hand-worked, structural pieces inspired by the Medieval craft guild tradition. The low boxy look iin heavy oak as well as the iron strapwork around the large door and side panels was Late Medieval in its inspiration. Seddon himself designed the metalwork and inlays and requested the Firm to make the large four and smaller six painted panels around the sides, below and above. The theme of the cabinet's pictorial decoration was King René's Honeymoon Cabinet, from Walter Scott,s novel, Anne of Geierstein.. Burne-Jones, Brown and Rossetti painted the four large panels of the French King, René of Anjou, who practiced and promoted the arts (Brown suggested the theme). The six smaller square panels at the top and around the sides of the cabinet featured various crafts in Medieval society. The panels collectively portrayed the fine and applied arts--painting, sculpture, glass blowing, embroidery, music, gardening, blacksmithing, weaving, etc. Burne-Jones, Rossetti and Prinsep did the miniature paintings while Morris designed the decorative background for the smaller panels. This was a very good example of the strong collaboration existing in early art manufactures.
In 1862 Morris designed his first wallpapers, Daisy, Fruit and Trellis,Illus. 46 whose designs and details were influenced by 1)Medieval motifs of English embroiderers and 2) actual trailing roses, fruit trees and flowers of the gardens at Red House. This marked a return to nature and naturalism, signaled sllightly earlier by the Pre-Raphaelites and a reaction against the formal, heraldic and bright patterns of Augustus Pugin and Owen Jones that were popular in the 1850s and 1860s. This design was based on the rose trellises around the house's central courtyard, visible from the kitchen. A sunny pattern with the hummingbirds drawn by Phillip Webb. The grid of the trellis as well as the continuous motif of the trailing rose stem interweave with one another and spread out along the surface. Morris was against the highly illusionistic paper patterns of the time which tended to draw the viewer into deep and confusing spaces within the pattern. The Firm first attempted to print the wallpapers at Red Lion Square using etched zinc plates and transparent oil colors. In 1864 Morris switched to using woodblocks and natural dyes. The Firm designed the patterns and then sent them to be cut and printed at Jeffrey & Company at Islington--a very reputable and relaible commercial wallpaper company. Art manufacturers usually designed their products in house and then sent the designs to a commercial establishment to be made in significant quantity.
The Sussex Chair was designed by Dante Gabriele Rossetti and sold by Morris & Company in 1865, the year that the company moved from Red Lion Square to 26 Queen Square in Bloomsbury. The design was adopted from an English country model of the 18th century. The design for this particular style of chair was found in the workshop of a Sussex County carpenter. It is a village carpenter's adaptation of a fancy Sheraton Style ate 18th century). The first rush-seated chairs were cheap and inexpensive and sold in 1862. Three of these old country types were in demand: the armchair, Illus. 70 cornerchair and settee. Illus. 71 The chairs were turned wood and painted black. There was a fashion at the time for ebonized wood, which was covered with a lacquer (the authentic Asian lacquers used tree gum). This treatment made the chairs popular in London showrooms where dark "aesthetic style" furniturre could be seen. Since the late 1850s, rush-seated chairs could be found in all the hoouses of the Firm's partners. George Warrington Taylor, Morris's first company manager, greatly admired "the old Sussex black chair" for its "poetry and simplicity." It was "essentially gentlemanly with a total absence of ex-tallow chandler vulgarity," and above all "an excellent example of light, moveable furniture you can pull around with one hand." In 1865 the Firm outgrew its commercial premises in Red Lion Square and moved to 26 Queen Square, in the Bloomsbury district of London, where old dignified houses on the block had been turned over to light industry. William Morris and his wife Jane Burden left their Red House in Upton, Kent, to live over the shop at Queens Square. The ground floor was converted into offices and a showroom. A large ballroom became the main workshop, while other workshops were set up in the courtyard in back of the building. The Firm (now called "Morris & Company" due to the recent restructuring of Morris, Marshall and Faulkner") had good competition from other independent businesses like Clayton, Bell, Lavers, Heaton and Skidmore.
In 1872 Morris began taking steps to expand his business in the upper middle-class market, particularly with household furnishings like wall coverings, upholsteries, curtain fabrics and carpets. In 1877 he was reviving old handicraft techniques for hand-knotted carpets and high-warp tapestries. These crafts were undertaken at his house in Hammersmith, in suburban London. In 1876 Morris began using turnover repeat patterns which came from Morris's experience with woven textiles--from the techniques of weaving, the turnover pattern simplified both the pointing and the setting up of the loom; from the patterns of Medieval textiles from the Mediterranean region in the South Kensington Museum where Morris was recently appointed Examiner of student work. Pimpernel wallpaper Illus. 47 was first produced in 1876 and put up in the dining room of Morris's suburban London home, Kelmscott House. Morris used the width of the paper or fabric for this design to create large patterns which Morris felt would be "more restful to the eye." Tonal shading is nearly given up for lighter or more linear patterns. Morris & Company Pimpernel wallpaper and Bird curtain fabric Illus. 49 in a small room of one of the Company's clients. Illus. 48
In 1876 Morris began lecturing about the state of the minor arts in Britain. He gave 20-28 different lectures from 1876 to 1890. To central arguments were conveyed: 1) People buy products for the wrong reasons, and 2) the handicraftsperson is no longer an artist in the second half of the nineteenth century. In furnishing papers and fabrics the result of this degradation of the carftsperson was that patterns designs now were made in haste and lacked understanding. In newer and cheaper products, for example, symbols, motifs and compositions were copied from the past, as if only by habit. Morris's answer was to begin making meaningful productsthat will stimulate and uplift the viewer, work that is as pleasurable to make as it is to use. The garden is the human construction that demonstrates our interaction with nature and our reverence for nature.The imagination of the craft artist will appeal to the creativity of the viewer to make him/her happy, curious and optimistic. Morris found these natural forms, the lily, rose, tulip, iris, chrysanthemum, in the garden and the grounds of his late Tudor style manor house of around 1570-85 in the village of Kelmscott, at the interior end of the Thames River. Illus. 53 Morris, shown here Illus. 51 moved to Kelmscott Manor the early 1870s.
Morris called tapestry "the noblest of the weaving arts, in which there is nothing mechanical." Special excellence was to be expected from its reputation for "force, purity and excellence." "Depth of tone, richness of color and exquisite gradation of tints are easily obtainable in tapestry." Crisp and abundant detail was also a feature of Medieval art. All these characteristics put weaving closest to the noble art of painting among fiber arts. These remarks are from Morris's lecture, "Textiles," of 1888 for the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.
The designs of Morris, Burne Jones or Rossetti were photographed and then the foreground and backgroound details were drawn in. The weaver took the tracing and the original, placing the tracings against the warp threads. Tints were arranged and even floral details were copied at the loom. Often a semi-retired weaver prepared the warp threads. Then, boys from 13-16 years of age would tie the warp onto the loom, and ink the design onto the warp. These boys assisted older experienced weavers like William Haines and George Eleman, from the Royal Windsor Tapestry Works. From Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, the tapestry operation was set up at Merton Abbey in 1882. There, three upright looms were established with 3 people working at each. Forest Tapestry, Illus. 72 which is tapestry woven wool and silk on a cotton warp. It was designed by William Morris, Philip Webb and John Henry Dearle. The weavers of it at Merton Abbey were William Knight, John Martin and William Sleath. Here a dense cover of trailing acanthus leaves into which have been placed Webb's five alnimal and bird designs. Morris probably designed the composition and supplied the acanthus leaves. He was also responsible for the inscription: "the beast that be in woodland waste, now sit and see nor ride nor haste,"
In 1881 Morris consolidated his workshops at Merton Abbey, Illus. 54 south of London in Surrey. Here, below and to the right, is a photo of the entrance to the Merton Abbey Works. The several acres of an abandoned monastery was wooded and occupied with two two-storey sheds and smaller buildings than were close to the Wandle River. Stained glass painting, cotton and paper block printing, dyeing, embroidery, as well as the hand-weaving of carpets, silk and woolen fabrics could all be carried on at one central manufactory. The spacious, beautiful and clean natural surroundings was supposed to inspire the designers, craftspersons and semi-skilled workers to do thoughtful work and make beautiful things. Older techniques, requiring more work by hand, were practiced at the Merton Abbey Works. Morris & Company brochures of 1882 and 1883 claimed that the company controlled more of the variables of production and offered many new ideas by its designers and craftspersons.
In November 1888, William Morris heard a lecture at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society by his friend Emery Walker on book design and printing. Walker advocated a unity of design where decoration should form a part of the page and part of the whole scheme of the book. Like architecture, the careful planning of every aspect--paper, ink, type, spacing, margins, illustrations and ornament--could result in a unity of design. Morris was encouraged by Walker to print his own books in order to get the effects that he wished to have. Morris founded Kelmscott Press in 1890 and started to use an old hand press rescued from a printer's storeroom. Morris set this press up in a rented cottage near his house in Hammersmith, outside of London. Morris consulted his large library of old books containing a few medieval manuscripts and Incunabula (Latin for cradle, or baby linen) early printing press volumes. He drew the letterforms and developed his first typeface, Golden, which combined Venetian and Old Style roman typefaces of the late Medieval and Renaissance eras. Voragine's Golden Legend and Ruskin's Illus. 69 On the Nature of the Gothic and Morris's novel News from Nowhere Illus. 56 were printed in the Golden typeface. For The Story of the Glittering Plain Illus. 57 1894, illustrated by Walter Crane, Morris developed his Troy typeface, which imitated the heavy, black letter type of German Gothic typographers like Peter Schoeffer and Anton Koberger. The wide margins, luminous range of contrasting values, meticulous hand printing and fine hand-made paper helped to promote the book as a work of art. Above and to the right we see a spread from The Story of the Glittering Plain.
Arthur Mackmurdo Illus. 60 and Herbert Horne founded the Century Guild in 1882.This was the first of the Collectives of fine artists and tradespeople. It formed the cornerstone of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and America. The Guild was in existence for 11 years until 1893. Although it produced little furniture, it made a lasting impact through the major British exhibitions that occurred during its first six years, when the members worked well together. These exhibitions were: Health, 1884,Inventions 1885, Liverpool International 1886, Manchester Jubilee,1887. In 1891 Guild works were introduced on the (European) Continent, and for about 10 years had a strong influence in three or four countries there.Mackmurdo was close to Morris in many ways:
Mackmurdo was concerned that individual pieces of a decorated interior Illus. 76 be executed with artistic sympathy and a fine sense of craftsmanship that corresponded to the aims of the building that used the objects and architectural details.
The Century Guild settle of 1886 shows that the Guild still relied on manufacturers like Simpson and Godlee, block printing and Collinson & Lock , furniture, to process the materials and manufacture the objects of its household products. The Century Guild settle was light, well-crafted, and restrained with its flat panels and vertical shafts "art furniture".
The restored door and interior furnishings for Henry Boddington's house, Pownall Hall, in Cheshire County, Illus 75 showed cooperation of Guild members and extensive, open, hand-raised low-relief ironwork in hinges, straps and door knockers (hammered, pierced, engraved) derived from Gothic and late Renaissance decorative patterns and techniques. Inside the residence, pierced brass, firescreens, light fixtures, candlesticks and dishes were made by the Century Guild. A closeup of the knocker on the front door at Pownall Hall,Illus 61 in the form of a winged dragon. We see some of the front door ironwork decoration for Pownall Hall, which was worked by hand.
In Mackmurdo's dining chair,Illus 64 abstract designs add structural strength, simplicity and elegance [Georgian styles of the 18th century] to the mahogany wood frame. On the right, we see the diningroom chair designed by the Guild and made by Collinson & Lock. The fretwork on the back recalls the swirling stem and flower forms that appeared on the title page of Wren's City Churches. 18th- century Georgian Period chairs were likewise sturdy, highbacked and often narrow with carved fretwork. Chairs were generally set back against the wall. The moderate curves also recall the rococo styles. Georgian revival styles include specifically Thomas Chippendale chairs of the 1760s, George Hepplewhite chairs of the 1780s and Sheraton chairs of the 1790s.
Mackmurdo's quarterly Hobby Horse Illus 63magazine actually preceded Morris's Kelmscott Press as an Arts & Crafts Magazine.The first issue was jointly edited by Herbert Horne and Mackmurdo on April 1884. The first title page, illustrated here had woodcut illustrations by Selwyn Image and Herbert Horne. It was the first literary magazine of the 1880s to emphasize art and the first to promote British design reform abroad. Mackmurdo intended the magazine as a "cornerstone" of the aesthetic and social concepts of the Guild. "I might here in this quarterly," argued Mackmurdo, "find a means of reinforcing from season to season the claims of art," and setting the tone for "a high standard of form and method" [Mackmurdo, History of the Arts and Crafts Movement, unpublished]. Mackmurdo had intorduced Morris to the Hobby Horse magazine, pointing out to Morris the adequate margins, intralinear spacing, careful layout. Emery Walker supervised the printing of the illustrations while the magazine was regularly printed at Chiswick Press on handmade paper.
Ashbee came to London's East End in 1886 to apprentice with the architect G.F. Bodley,Illus 77 the first patron of Morris's Firm. There, he began a Ruskin reading class at Toynbee Hall, the pioneer university settlement of the time established by Canon Samuel Barnett to get to know the areas where the city's poorest residents lived). Shortly, Ashbee was teaching classes on drawing and decoration at the school. The Whitechapel suburb of London Illus 78 was close to where the Toynbee Hall and the early Guild were located.
By the winter of 1887-1888, Ashbee drafted a proposal for a Technical and Art School for East London, which would combine a workshop cooperative and a school. Men in the workshop would teach in the school, where in turn skilled workshop recruits would emerge. The resulting Guild and School of Handicraft, which was formed in 1888, appeared to combine two functions. First, it operated as a practical craft center and satisfied the growing need for a connection between the applied arts being taught at the art and design schools and the important improvements in design and technology occurring in manufacturing settings. The newer trade classes and polytechnic schools of the 1880s sought to introduce industrial arts or crafts in a school environment where art was being taught.
Ashbee' Guild would also serve as an art manufacturer, in the tradition of Summerly Art Manufacturers, Morris and Company or the Century Guild, which designed interior furnishings and wares for customers with progressive tastes in the domestic market. Architects, painters, sculptors and craftsmen, representing the different arts, worked together to design objects which were different than those being manufactured by the commercial-oriented trades. On the other hand, the Guild and School, emerging from the social reform setting of Toynbee Hall and its founder Canon Samuel Barnett, paralleled to a degree the Home Arts Movement in Britain in offering to teach crafts to children of the working classes in order to improve their lives. The four or five students from Ashbee's art classes who ended up at the Guild of Handicraft usually had little or no previous training in craftsmanship.
Ashbee was distrustful of the designer/craftsman who worked for industry and the design schools that prepared young people for industry.This was in keeping with the Arts and Crafts philosophy of individual style and the spirit of experimentation under the guidance of the master craftsman. The School of Handicraft was established to train people for the Guild's workshops. The designing class was the "backbone" of the school, where each student was taught:
Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft emphasized apprenticeship (supervision, experimentation) and "pulling together" in the workshop. Like Morris, he looked for honest guild workers who found pleasure and spiritual fulfillment in their work. In the various handicrafts operated by the Guild, the hand was used instead of the machine, especially where there was a real difference in appearance. "Thus a timber plank, it was held, could be sawn by the circular saw, but should not be subsequently carved by machinery. A silver plate could be rolled by the mill, but the actual dish or cup should not be subsequently spun in the chuck." Ashbee, Craftsmanship in Competitve Industry, 1908, p. 18. A contemporary print of the Guild of Handicraft. Illus. 80
The move in spring 1891 of the Guild and School of Handicraft from Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel to a stately Georgian-style mansion on Mile End Road in the outskirts of East London was in keeping with the Guild's recent successes. It was a commercial area of shops, taverns and houses with a sizeable population of skilled workers. At Mile End the Guild experienced a slow but steady growth in business and personnel that reached a high point in 1897.
In Ashbee's book, A Few Chapters on Workshop Reconstruction (1894), there was now a more practical tone relating to the activity and products of the Guild craftsman and their wider implication for the labor sector of society. Ashbee differentiated art, craft and industry by the degree to which the mind and the hand were used, but noted that they overlapped "where the difference is one of degree in a chain of production downwards from a picture by Burne-Jones through a chair of Chippendale to the phosphorous tip produced by the Bow match girl and her attendant machines." (10) His major premise was that there existed among producers and consumers a growing awareness that art embraced a wide field of activity from oil painting to the decorative arts and handcraftsmanship. The focus of much of the writing from 1894 to 1901 was the craftsman producer, who should be the ultimate source of the standard of excellence for any line of products. The producer's presence or absence, Ashbee argued, should be felt in the product, itself. "In the commercial article, made not to use but to sell," Ashbee asked, "where was the producer, and what manner of man was he? It is well that we should bear this in mind when we walk these streets of London."(12) This presence depended upon the worker's ability to have a sense of control in his environment. This was reflected in his enjoyment of his natural surroundings. Enthusiasm for one's surroundings and work should be reflected in the spirit put into it, as a symbol of creation as it relates to the object. The thing itself, explained Ashbee, is a trifle, empty and vain. For the artist as well as the craftsman producer, the individual touches and the little human details will ultimately fill the work with interest and character.
In early essays and speeches, Ashbee wrote about the successful organization of the modern workshop, where social reform as well as technical education was carried out. In his essay, Decorative Art from A Workshop Point of View (1889), Ashbee stressed the teamwork of the workshop, which ran counter to the studio of the artist, where isolation, subjectivity and refined sensuality were the norm. Ashbee felt that a final corporate sense of style would emerge in the workmanship, decoration, design and construction of several workers where an individual soul and a standard of excellence for that product type would emerge. In his essay, How Can We Run Art from Our Polytechnics? (1891), Ashbee discusses the technical school and what kind of affiliation it should have with the manufacturing center. Ashbee observed that the manufacturer, designer and workman, respectively, had individual habitual attitudes and misunderstandings toward the other two that prevented any cooperative venture from emerging in the commercial setting of industry. The solution was for the entrepreneur to invest in education and build a small school where theory and practice could be brought together. Illus 84 The designer would learn more about tools and materials while the workman would learn about theory and "how the whole hangs together." The two major objectives would be to have a highly competent master on the premises, working with his hands in the school, and a system of fellowship where the student looked forward to working together in a school tradition while still maintaining individuality in their work. In The Manual of the Guild and School of Handicraft of 1892, which evolved from the previous year's request for a training report from the newly empowered Essex County Council, Ashbee emphasized that technical training at the School of Handicraft was only a part of a more harmonious training, where students "shall be trained, not in what to do, but what to be." Thus, the Guild and School functioned as a college where the "higher and theoretical aspects of art" were covered. Just above, we see Tom Jelliffe, master craftsman in his cabinet workshop of the Guild of Handicraft in about 1900.
A very elaborate writing cabinet Illus 86 was supervised by master craftsman, Tom Jelliffe. The squared-off style, right angles and simple planks over the carcass, with inside-out framing (molding is on the inside), minimal decoration (some painting, wide expansive strapwork hinges in wrought iron--not functional as in the past) was in the Arts & Crafts tradition. Drawer handles and lock plates were also decorated with ironwork. Lozenge or rectangular panels with simple, flat and linear plant designs were Medieval in inspiration, but simplified for Arts & Crafts taste. Boxy, functional and linear shapes were stylish (Charles Eastlake and Baillie Scott influence). About this cabinet, Ashbee said in Craftsmanship in Competitive Industry: "The cabinet represents the labour of one skilled cabinet maker for about three months . . . For ten years, the Guild made and stocked one or two such pieces of furniture each year, always from fresh designs; and whenever public exhibition was possible, it succeeded in selling what it made." The cabinet illustrated "the individuality, progressive invention and tradition" of the Guild. (p. 103) In furniture, the Guild specialized in fixed pieces that rest against the wall and produced work that was similar to the simple progressive-looking frame and panel furniture of Charles Voysey, Mackay Baillie Scott and others in native woods like oak and walnut. This example Illus 86 of that style is a very expensive cabinet exhibited at the Vienna Secession Exhibition of 1900 and was acquired by a Viennese family.
In 1902, the Guild of Handicraft moved to the country, Illus 89transporting 50 craftsmen and about 150 family members to Chipping Camden in Glaucestershire. The old malt shop was turned into the School of Handiscraft while an old mill was used for workshop space. Neglected cottages nearby were turned into living quarters. One is reminded of Merton Abbey at Surrey, in the outskirts of London, maintained by Morris & Co., or the Daneway House farmstead near Sapperton village managed by Ernest Gimson and Sidney Barnsley.
Ashbee held classes and activities at the School for both adults and children in the community in order to provide skills not acquired in elementary school or adult clubs, such as swimming, gardening, cooking, carpentry, and life and duties of the citizen. Illus 106, Illus 107 Ashbee further organized Oxford University extension classes and summer school in Chipping Campden, where professional colleagues from London came to lecture. Here are two photos showing gardening and exercise class as organized activities.
This move to the country was made when the lease ran out at Essex House, in the midst of the Guild's prosperity. In 1898 the Guild was officially registered as a limited company and was enjoying an international reputation for the first time. The Guild had opened a showroom in Brooke Street the following year. At that time, there was a combined workforce of thirty.
Christopher Dresser set a precedent in England when during the 1880s he worked costly materials in an economic way and emphasized this in simple and functional designs: light, thin plate of silver (coated object by electroplating instead of older more costly Sheffield plate. Ashbee made tableware, silver presentation cups and boxes, all somewhat austere in appearance. The exhibition stand was the Guild of Handicraft's first important showing of their silver pieces in the Arts and Crafts Exhibition of 1896. Illus 82 Ornament focused in one area leaving the rest plain, perhaps relieved by a mounted stone.
In Craftsmanship in Competitive Industry, Ashbee singled out a silver presentation cup of about 1900 with turquoise and enamel and with the form raised by hand and planished with a round-faced hammer to make the metal soft and warm to the touch. The increase in silver over brass and copper, the casting of parts, and the use of Georgian styles were comparable to wares manufactured by the commercial trade at the time. Ashbee produced a number of inexpensive Victorian decanter bottles Illus 83fitted with metal mounts and elegant silver wire cradles and handles that emphasized the breadth of the bottle and both the construction and decoration of the piece in one form. The Guild produced an abundance of original and yet modestly-priced jewelry by the later 90s in brooches, clasp and pendants that had a few simple parts of silver, a set stone and openwork surrounding it . The Decanter from the Kent Collection, 1904 is hand-raised and planished for a tactile, soft and individual effect.
When we look at the Guild metal ware and furniture we see the strong individualism and standards that were generally maintained in the workshops. Ashbee remarked that the customer was not to be placated with machine-made products on account of their cheapness, neatness and trade finish. "Thus a timber plank it was held could be sawn by the circular saw but should not be subsequently carved by machinery. A silver plate could be rolled by the mill, but the actual dish or cup should not be subsequently spun in the chuck."
Only months before the dissolution of the Guild of Handicraft in 1908, Ashbee's book Craftsmanship in Competitive Industry was published. In this work, Ashbee presented a new perspective on the subject of craftsmanship. He called for a new social and political point of view for the craftsman, who actually had little in common with Socialism, Parliamentary reform and Trade Unionism. The recent experiences at Chipping Campden confirmed for Ashbee that people working in the crafts must supplement their income with land cultivation and husbandry. The problems experienced by the Guild in its move from London to Chipping Campden were aggravated by the recent nation-wide recession of 1906 and 1907. In addition to high transportation costs, little demand for quality products and an inadequate workforce in the country, the craftsmen had great difficulty supplementing their income in rural industries. Several of the craftsmen quit their jobs and either went to work for a trade or took up another line of work. For the future, Ashbee suggested implementing a social economy in a rural environment comparable to that of pre-Industrial times where craftspeople of villages and small towns labored in little workshops, owned shares of the business, had direct contact with consumers and enjoyed beautiful and peaceful surroundings. Industry and the machine were better suited to the city while the handicrafts would better survive in the country as a regional pursuit.
Ashbee felt that the final failure of the Guild of Handicraft was due in large part to a lack of public understanding about the true value of craftsmanship. The craftsman had a special place in the art world and in the national labor population. On the one hand, the craftperson was the mediator between art and the machine. On the other, he represented a unique workforce of working men and women who were closely tied to the life and aesthetic sensibilities of the community. The reconstructed workshop represented a reform of labor organization along a Medieval corporate model. More important, the small workshop became a modern laboratory where craft skills, human needs and imagination came together to fashion work whose character embodied something of the knowledge and ingenuity of its maker.
Both Ernest Gimson and the Barnsleys, Ernest and Sidney, were sons of successful self-made men, a Leicester ironfounder and a Birmingham builder, respectively. All three entered careers in architecture. Gimson, himself, said that he was inspired by a William Morris lecture. Gimson had joined the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, like Morris and Mackmurdo, and decided to master traditional crafts that were threatened with extinction. He spent two weeks at Bosbury in Herefordshire with Philip Clissett, a chair bodger who taught him rush-seated and ladderback designs in turned ash. A pole lathe as well as the process of steaming and bending wood pieces were used in constructing chairs. In 1890 Gimson and Sidney Barnsley became partners in Kenton and Company, a cooperative business that produced furniture designed by architects. Lethaby, Macartney and Blomfield were the other partners. They all had previous experience designing furniiture. As with the Century Guild, the furniture was made by professional cabinetmakers. The partners selected their own materials and supervised their workmen at Kenton & Co. Reginald Blomfield said of Kenton & Company's products: " We set out to make the best possible furniture of its time, with the best materials and the best workmanship attainable, and as we hoped, the best designs, for we made the designs ourselves, bought our own materials, and supervised our own workmen in our shops." [Blomfield, Richard Norman Shaw, 1940] The company folded in 1892 for lack of sufficient funds.
In 1902 Gimson and Sidney Barnsley leased Lord Bathurst's Daneway farm near Sapperton village in the Cotswold region of England (Daneway was 20 miles from Chipping Campden, although there was little contact between the Guild of Handicraft and Daneway Workshops). At Daneway, the house was used as a showroom Illus 96 and the farm buildings were employed as furniture workshops. The house and surroundings were deemed to be a pleasant place for visitors and sightseers. A master cabinetmaker, Peter van der Waals, was hired as foreman around a small group of highly skilled caraftsmen ---Harry Davoll from a nearby Cirencester workshop, and Percy Burchett and Ernest Smith from London. Gimson used native woods (oak, elm, yew and walnut) that were chosen for the placement and use of the piece. He avoided inlays, ebonized finishes, which disguised materials. Chamfering (wheelwright technique of bevelling edges) reduced weight, softened corners and helped to avoid excessive wear. He used exposed dovetail joinery and stretchers (hayrake, wishbone types) in the underframing of furniture. These practices were widely used for centuries in small towns and villages of England. Gimson remained with Daneway through the years of World War I, until his death in 1919. Gimson wanted to make furniture that was "good enough, but not too good for ordinary use." The function and design of the piece dictated the type of wood to be used. Basic construction principles were adopted while superfluous ornament and ebonized finishes were avoided. There were inlays of expensive materials, but overall there was great emphasis on simple form and on having surface texture. Leather or rush was frequently used for the seats and backs of chairs.
There were innovations in British metalwork and jewelry. Century Guild and Daneway made pierced and chased wrought iron firescreens, candleholders, latches and window encasements. Alexander Fisher revived Renaissance style chalices, caskets, napkin holders and jewelry settings with enamel plaques (like miniature easel paintings). Medieval- and Renaissance-inspired filigree and chasing were used in clasps, belt buckles and pendant necklaces. These forms were earlier revived by the architect and designers Augustus W.N. Pugin during the 1840s and 1850s in his own business.
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Session 4 Arts and Crafts Movement in America
Session 5 Art Nouveau
Session 6 Art Deco
Session 7 Post-Modern Design