When we hear the term
“Arts & Crafts” in terms of architecture, furniture, or
decorative arts, we often think of Craftsman bungalows and square,
rough-hewn chairs, and rooms adorned with pottery in subdued hues. In
fact, there was never merely one style of Arts & Crafts design.
Beginning, as we have noted previously, in the Gothic Revival in
Britain, and under the strong influence of the Mediaevalism of Ruskin
and Pugin, the drive for incorporation of historical and vernacular
styles (local to the area in which the items were made) was an early
tenet of the look. Morris certainly did this with his inclusion of
such items as Sussex chairs and refectory (or trestle) tables; the
Sussex chair became widely known as the Morris chair and was copied
worldwide.
Morris famously advised
clients to 'have nothing in your homes which you do not know to be
beautiful and believe to be useful.' However, fed a constant stream
of gimcrack manufactured items, how was the average person – whom
Morris wished to reach in his reforms – to know what was beautiful,
or indeed discern what was truly useful from the plethora of
so-called labour saving devices come upon the market (such as carpet
sweepers and any manner of kitchen gadgetry)? One answer was to look
to the Art & Crafts designers for advice as arbiters of the
beautiful, rather than manufacturers of mainstream Victorian
furniture and decorative arts items. Another, equally valid, method
was to look to nature, both wild and domestic, and impart these
designs by simple means into or onto the furniture one's local
ancestors had always made, or the items made by the household for
their use. The advantage to the latter is that we may incorporate
symbols which are important to ourselves, our family, or our local
or ethnic history into the ornamentation of our homes and their
decoration, thus truly making a statement about who we are and what
matters to us, which has always been a purpose of design, but which
was especially important to the Arts & Crafts, and even moreso to
us today.
Following on this edict
was the principle of simplicity of design; that is, no 'excess'
ornamentation (for its own sake), as may be seen in the Victorians'
use of multiple layers of drapery and curtains, table coverings, or
combining of several period styles of carving in one piece of
furniture. The Renaissance revival style is a good example of this
'excess ornamentation', being a mishmash of a wide range of classical
Italian and French modes, without much regard to the rules of the
classical orders. Real Renaissance era buildings and furnishings
adhere to the rules of proportion, and thus appear balanced and
pleasing, while much of their Victorian counterparts are a jumble and
disturbing to the senses.
In the melding of the
Arts & Crafts with Art Nouveau, Jugenstyl, and other national or
local styles, such as Viking revival or Tiffany glasswork, some may
argue that this principle of simplicity was lost; while others –
the work of Macintosh and the Glasgow School, Archibald Knox,
Stickley, Greene & Greene, the Roycroft Co-operative, and Frank
Lloyd Wright retain the simplicity of design of the pure Arts &
Crafts ethos. Personally, I have a great fancy for both Knox's pared
down Celtic designs – which were sold through Liberty and Company's
department store – and work of G.F and Mary Watts, notable the
Watts Chapel. Somewhere in the middle of this design spectrum is the
embroidery work of Jessie Newbery and the MacDonald sisters, Frances
and Margaret. I will confess to being awed and overwhelmed by the beauty
of Tiffany glass, seen up close in an exhibition many years ago, but
after a while, it became disturbingly too much for the senses,
whereas the softer colours of the designs inside the Watts Chapel
were much more restful to the eye; thus I learned an important lesson
about what was meant by 'simplicity' in this matter. It is one thing
to have bright scarlet walls with industrial furniture as a design
statement, but quite another to live a comfortable, relaxed life with
it.
For the everyday person
especially, working in shops, offices, or factories, coming home to a
restful, beautiful environment impacted the quality of life as much
as having beautiful interiors did to the upper classes, and this is
why Morris strove to make beautiful, well-crafted items available to
the masses, even if production costs made individually crafted items
prohibitively expensive to the masses. The philosophy of the effect
of beauty and harmonious surroundings upon the spirit of man is a
very important one in Arts & Crafts design, following on Ruskin's
idea that in the Middle Ages when the common folk worked outdoors for
the most part and were surrounded by nature, then went home to
simple, handmade furnishings and hand worked neccessaries, they were
happier than the contemporary man, working in a dirty, grey gritty
factory full of noise, coming home through dirty, crowded noisy
streets to squalid cheaply furnished accommodations often shared with
too many others, punctuated by ugly tin souvenirs from hard-won
seaside holidays. I am exaggerating but a little the everyday life of
ordinary people in the period. This concern for the mental as well as
physical well-being of the working man was an enormous preoccupation
for many social reformers at the time, of whom our Arts & Crafts
designers were numbered. The drive for Beauty wasn't just an ivory
tower ideal promulgated by backward-looking academics, but a real,
nuts and bolts, crying from the streetcorners reform movement that
took many forms. We may ask ourselves in the 21st century,
with lives full of endless technology and media bombardment, whether
we may not learn something of how to make our lives better from these
efforts of our radical Victorian friends.
Specifically, what
distinguishes items as Arts & Crafts, whether made in the
accepted period of 1860-1900 or today, is that they are made from
start to finish by the designer (not designed by one person and parts
made individually by others then assembled at some future point);
using natural local woods with exposed joints (or locally available
metals); made from or incorporating vernacular, traditional designs,
used in the local area for generations; with stylised designs (often
of a folk nature) taken from the local outdoors. What I mean by
stylised designs is the flat, Pre-Raphaelite etching style seen in
Mediaeval woodcuts. Morris said of textile designs that they weren't
supposed to look like an actual field of flowers (referencing the
mania for extreme shading then popular; today we would call it
needlepainting.) There is some shading, to distinguish one part of
the design from another, but it is very minimal, and indeed to our
eyes as well as the Victorians', the design will look flat, not three
dimensional.
We can see why, then,
that there was no specific 'Arts & Crafts' style, being adapted
to suit local materials and conditions. An Arts & Crafts style
can be Japanese, German, Czech, or Nigerian, as long as it follows on
the design principles. One is not better than another, or 'more' Arts
& Crafts. We will have our personal preferences, of course, and
that is perfectly acceptable.
Finally, an important
aspect to designing one's own interiors and exteriors – the front
terrace garden and walk being as much a part of the design of one's
environs as the curtains or crockery indoors – is cohesion. Pick a
local style of Arts & Crafts design and by and large stick to it.
This limits the options, of course, but also chaos which may ensue
from competing styles and a disconcerting jumble to the eye. If you
must, mix two or three which are analogous (for instance, Viking,
Jacobean, and Celtic) for some variety. As an example, I love
Japonisme, East Indian and Tibetan folk art, but as I have European,
mostly Jacobean style furniture and lots of plaid, being Scottish,
the exotic East really wouldn't go, so I limit my forays to a few
clothing items. Otherwise, my digs would look like a rather
neglected anthropology museum instead of a Scottish country manor in
miniature, which is my object. Also, contrary to the 'country'
decorating style, try not to have vast collections of things you
don't actually use cluttering up the walls and shelves, whether it be
baskets, quilts, depression glass, or real ancient Greco-Roman urns
(which, unless you inherited them from your uncle who excavated Troy
you shouldn't have anyway.) If you have real, beautiful things, use
them. If you need a dinnerware set for 100 people because you host
State dinners, then by all means, have it. But a collection of 2000
antique china thimbles can probably go to your local museum, where
you can visit them if necessary.
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