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Artists & Designers associated with the Arts & Crafts Movement

1. Maxwell Armfield

Birthplace: Ringwood, United Kingdom

Nationality: English

Education: Birmingham School of Art, Académie de la Grande Chaumière

Movements: Arts and crafts movement, Birmingham Group

Art Forms: Painting, Tempera

Maxwell Ashby Armfield (1881 – 1972) was an English artist, illustrator and writer. In 1887 he was admitted to Birmingham School of Art, then under the headmastership of Edward R. Taylor and established as a major centre of the Arts and Crafts Movement. There he studied under Henry Payne and Arthur Gaskin and, outside the school, received instruction in tempera painting from Joseph Southall at Southall's studio in Edgbaston.

Oh! Willo! Willo! Willo! 1902 

How?

According to Alexander Ballard, the artist sold T.1902 to a private collector who afterwards exchanged it for another painting by Armfield, a flower piece; Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read; Thomas Stainton.

What? 

The title relates to the late sixteenth or early seventeenth-century song of lost love, ‘Willow Song’, by an anonymous composer and used, with alterations, by Shakespeare in Othello. 

Oil paint on canvas, 445 x 289 mm. 

Who?

Artist Maxwell Ashby Armfield

When?

Inscribed ‘June to August 1902 AD’ and monogram b.l. 

Purchased from Thomas Stainton through the Fine Art Society Ltd (Benson Fund) 1974.

Where?

Published in The Tate Gallery 1974-6: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1978

Why?

Nope

2. Joseph Southall

Birthplace: Nottingham, United Kingdom

Nationality: United Kingdom, England

Education: Birmingham School of Art

Movements: Arts and crafts movement, Birmingham Group

Art Forms: Mural, Painting, Tempera, Political, Cartoons, Decorative arts

Joseph Edward Southall (1861 – 1944) was an English painter associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. After an education at Quaker schools including Ackworth School and Bootham School in York, Southall returned to Birmingham in 1878 and was articled as a trainee with the leading local architects' practice Martin & Chamberlain, while studying painting part-time at the Birmingham School of Art. Both institutions were steeped in the spirit of John Ruskin and the Arts and Crafts movement: architect John Henry Chamberlain was a founder and trustee of the Guild of St George, while the Principal of the School of Art, Edward R. Taylor, was a pioneer of Arts and Crafts education and a friend of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Southall however was frustrated by his architectural training, feeling that an architect should have a broader understanding of craft disciplines such as painting and carving. With this in mind he undertook several tours in Europe. In 1882 he visited Bayeux, Rouen and Amiens in Northern France. The following year, having left Martin & Chamberlain, he spent thirteen weeks in Italy, visiting Pisa, Florence, Siena, Orvieto, Rome, Bologna, Padua, Venice and Milan.Italy was to have a profound impact. The frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli were to inspire a deep admiration for the painters of the Italian Renaissance who - before the practice of oil painting spread to Italy from Northern Europe in the sixteenth century - worked largely in egg-based tempera.

Cinderella 1893–1895

How?

After studying architecture from 1878 until 1882, Joseph Southall decided to devote himself to art. He was largely self taught and much influenced by Ruskin's ideas and early Italian paintings, notably Carpaccio's. He was helped first by Sir William Blake Richmond, and later by Burne-Jones who was born in Birmingham where Southall spent all his life from the age of one.

During the 1880's and early '90's Southall taught himself to paint in tempera. It was during the course of the necessary research that he painted T.1930, a watercolour, the first work he exhibited at the Royal Academy.

What?

In painting ‘Cinderella’ Southall took his subject from what is probably the most popular fairy story in Britain. (See Iona and Peter Opie, The Classic Fairy Tales, London 1974). In T01930, as in many Italian quattrocento paintings, more than one action is depicted in the same picture. Cinderella is shown, dressed in kitchen clothes, waving goodbye to her step-sisters, who are departing for the ball, from a first floor window in the house in the right background. She is also depicted in the left foreground after her kitchen rags have been transformed into fine clothes suitable for a ball.

Watercolour on paper, 543 x 384 mm.

Who?

Artist Joseph Edward Southall.

When?

Inscribed ‘JES’ (monogram) 1893–5 b.l. 

Purchased at Sotheby's (Grant-in-Aid) 1974 

Where?

Published in The Tate Gallery 1974-6: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1978

Why?

Nope

3. Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt

Birthplace: Birmingham, United Kingdom

Nationality: United Kingdom

Movements: Aestheticism, Arts and Crafts movement, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Symbolist literature

Art Forms: Painting

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt (1833 – 1898) was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. He attended Birmingham's King Edward VI grammar school from 1844 and the Birmingham School of Art from 1848 to 1852, before studying theology at Exeter College, Oxford. At Oxford he became a friend of William Morris as a consequence of a mutual interest in poetry. The two Exeter undergraduates, together with a small group of Jones' friends from Birmingham known as the Birmingham Set, speedily formed a very close and intimate society, which they called "The Brotherhood". The members of the Brotherhood read John Ruskin and Tennyson, visited churches, and worshipped the Middle Ages. At this time Burne-Jones discovered Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur which was to be so influential in his life. At that time neither Burne-Jones nor Morris knew Rossetti personally, but both were much influenced by his works, and met him by recruiting him as a contributor to their Oxford and Cambridge Magazine which Morris founded in 1856 to promote their ideas.

King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid 1884

How?

Burne-Jones first attempted the story in an oil painting of 1861–62 (now in the Tate Gallery, London). He was working out a new composition around 1874 or 1875, and began the painting in earnest in 1881. He worked on it through the winter of 1883–84, declaring it finished in April 1884.

The composition is influenced by Andrea Mantegna's Madonna della Vittoria (1496–96). Several studies for the final work survive. A small gouache (bodycolour) of c. 1883 (now in the collection of Andrew Lloyd Webber) shows the king and the beggar maid much closer together, and a full-scale cartoon in bodycolour and coloured chalks of the same year (now in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery) features an entirely different approach to lighting the figures.

What?

Burne-Jones’s painting of the African king Cophetua and his love for the beggar Penelophon was based on an Elizabethan ballad and Tennyson’s poem The Beggar Maid. The painting became famous for its technical execution and theme of love and beauty transcending power and material wealth. It was regarded as one of the finest paintings ever produced by a British artist and was widely admired on the Continent. The picture’s egalitarian story has also been connected with the socialism of Burne-Jones’s close friend William Morris.

Oil paint on canvas, 2934 x 1359 mm (3885 x 2200 x 220).

Who?

Artist Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt

When?

Inscribed in April 1884.

The painting was purchased by the Earl of Wharncliffe (d. 1899) and acquired by public subscription through the Burne-Jones Memorial Fund from his executors in 1900. 

Where?

Tate Britain, London

Why?

Nope

SOURCE: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell_Armfield

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Southall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Burne-Jones

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/armfield-oh-willo-willo-willo-t01902

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/southall-cinderella-t01930

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burne-jones-king-cophetua-and-the-beggar-maid-n01771

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Arts & Crafts Movement

Arts and Crafts style developed in the 1860s as a reaction against the growing industrialisation of Victorian Britain. Those involved believed in the equality of all the arts and the importance and pleasure of work. The appearance of the style resulted from the principles involved in the making of the objects. By the end of the century such ideals had affected the design and manufacture of all the decorative arts in Britain.

In Britain the disastrous effects of industrial manufacture and unregulated trade had been recognised since about 1840, but it was not until the 1860s and 1870s that architects, designers and artists began to pioneer new approaches to design and the decorative arts. These, in turn, led to the foundation of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

The two most influential figures were the theorist and critic John Ruskin and the designer, writer and activist William Morris. Ruskin examined the relationship between art, society and labour. Morris put Ruskin's philosophies into practice, placing great value on work, the joy of craftsmanship and the natural beauty of materials.

Aims

The Arts and Crafts movement was a social/artistic movement of modern art, which began in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth, spreading to continental Europe and the USA. Its adherents - artists, architects, designers, writers, craftsmen and philanthropists - were united by a common set of aesthetics, that sought to reassert the importance of design and craftsmanship in all the arts in the face of increasing industrialization, which they felt was sacrificing quality in the pursuit of quantity. Its supporters and practitioners were united not so much by a style than by a common goal - a desire to break down the hierarchy of the arts (which elevated fine art like painting and sculpture, but looked down on applied art), to revive and restore dignity to traditional handicrafts and to make art that could be affordable for all.

Material

Preserving and emphasising the natural qualities of the materials used to make objects was one of the most important principles of Arts and Crafts style.

Simple forms

Simple forms were one of the hallmarks of the Arts and Crafts style. There was no extravagant or superfluous decoration and the actual construction of the object was often exposed.

Natural motifs  

Nature was an important source of Arts and Crafts motifs. The patterns used were inspired by the flora and fauna of the British countryside.

The vernacular

The vernacular, or domestic, traditions of the British countryside provided the main inspiration for the Arts and Crafts Movement. Many of those involved set up workshops in rural areas and revived old techniques.

Key Ideas

The Arts & Crafts movement existed under its specific name in the United Kingdom and the United States, and these two strands are often distinguished from each other by their respective attitudes towards industrialization: in Britain, Arts & Crafts artists and designers tended to be either negative or ambivalent towards the role of the machine in the creative process, while Americans tended to embrace the machine more readily.

The practitioners of the movement strongly believed that the connection forged between the artist and his work through handcraft was the key to producing both human fulfillment and beautiful items that would be useful on an everyday basis; as a result, Arts & Crafts artists are largely associated with the vast range of the decorative arts and architecture as opposed to the "high" arts of painting and sculpture.

The Arts & Crafts aesthetic varied greatly depending on the media and location involved, but it was influenced most prominently by both the imagery of nature and the forms of medieval art, particularly the Gothic style, which enjoyed a revival in Europe and North America during the mid-nineteenth century.

People

William Morris (1834–1896)

The leading champion of the Arts and Crafts movement was the designer, painter, poet and social reformer William Morris. A passionate Socialist, Morris proclaimed, "I do not want art for a few, any more than I want freedom for a few." Drawing on the ideas of the architect Augustus W.N. Pugin (1812-52), who proselytized the moral superiority of the art of the Middle Ages, and the art critic and writer John Ruskin (1819-1900), who denounced the greed and self-interest of contemporary capitalist society, Morris developed the view that art should be both beautiful and functional. His ideal, the pure and simple beauty of medieval craftsmanship, was further strengthened by his friendships with members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who also looked to the Middle Ages (hence the term 'Pre-Raphaelite') for aesthetic inspiration and moral guidance.

Morris' design for the Kelmscott Press' trademark

William Morris design for "Trellis" wallpaper, 1862

William Morris design Ornaments

Augustus Pugin (1812–1852)

Augustus Pugin was the leading figure in the revival of the Gothic style which became increasingly important throughout the nineteenth century, gradually replacing Classical styles in popularity. The Arts and Crafts movement has its roots in the Gothic revival and this page gives a brief guide to Gothic style and its influence.

Palace of Westminster

John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Ruskin's contributions included his avowed dislike for classical works in buildings & art and his substitution of the Gothic with its asymmetry and roughness as the ideal for new art. Along with William Morris, he was critical of the new industrialization taking place in Europe and America. Ruskin's most radical idea was his total rejection of any machine produced products. He characterized all machine made objects as "dishonest." He believed, along with Morris, that handwork and craftsmanship brought dignity to labor. He further felt that the factory/industrial work of the age disrupted the natural rhythms of life by imposing artificial hours and conditions on workers. To this end he founded a utopian Arts & Crafts community in 1871.

Decorated cusped gothic window

Influences on later art

In Europe (1890 - 1914)

Widely exhibited in Europe, the Arts and Crafts movement's qualities of simplicity and honest use of materials negating historicism inspired designers like Henry van de Velde and movements such as Art Nouveau, the Dutch De Stijl group, Viennese Secessionstil and eventually the Bauhaus. The movement can be assessed as a prelude to Modernism, where pure forms, stripped of historical associations, would be once again applied to industrial production.

In Russia, Viktor Hartmann, Viktor Vasnetsov and other artists associated with Abramtsevo Colony sought to revive the spirit and quality of medieval Russian decorative arts in the movement quite independent from that flourishing in Great Britain.

The Wiener Werkstätte, (Vienna Workshop) founded in 1903 by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, played an independent role in the development of Modernism, with its Wiener Werkstätte Style.

The British Utility furniture of World War II was simple in design and based on Arts and Crafts ideas.

Armchair, Otto Wagner, Vienna, about 1898-1899

In America (1890 - 1916)

In the United States, the Arts and Crafts Movement took on a distinctively more bourgeois flavor. While the European movement tried to recreate the virtuous world of craft labor that was being destroyed by industrialization, Americans tried to establish a new source of virtue to replace heroic craft production: the tasteful middle-class home. They thought that the simple but refined aesthetics of Arts and Crafts decorative arts would ennoble the new experience of industrial consumerism, making individuals more rational and society more harmonious. In short, the American Arts and Crafts Movement was the aesthetic counterpart of its contemporary political movement:Progressivism.

In the United States, the Arts and Crafts Movement spawned a wide variety of attempts to reinterpret European Arts and Crafts ideals for Americans. These included the "Craftsman"-style architecture, furniture, and other decorative arts such as the designs promoted by Gustav Stickley in his magazine, The Craftsman. A host of imitators of Stickley's furniture (the designs of which are often mislabeled the "Mission Style") included three companies formed by his brothers, the Roycroft community founded by Elbert Hubbard, the "Prairie School" of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Country Day School movement, the bungalow style of houses popularized by Greene and Greene, utopian communities like Byrdcliffe and Rose Valley, and the contemporary studio craft movement. Studio pottery—exemplified by Grueby, Newcomb, Teco, Overbeck and Rookwood pottery, Bernard Leach in Britain, and Pewabic Pottery in Detroit—as well as the art tiles by Ernest A. Batchelder in Pasadena, California, and idiosyncratic furniture of Charles Rohlfs also demonstrate the clear influence of Arts and Crafts Movement. Mission, Prairie, and the California Craftsman styles of homebuilding remain tremendously popular in the United States today.

Charger, Gustav Stickley, about 1905

In Japan (1926 - 1945)

The Mingei (Folk Crafts) movement in Japan was led by the philosopher and critic Yanagi Sōetsu  and officially established in 1926. It was equivalent to, and very largely inspired by, the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and Europe. John Ruskin and William Morris, whose work had been available since the1880s,were major influences. Knowledge about subsequent developments in Europe also reached Japan.As with other Arts and Crafts developments, the Mingei movement emerged during a time of rapid change. In Japan, this involved westernisation as well as industrialisation and urban growth. Mingei philosophy recognised this international and urban dimension, but at the same time asserted a new sense of Japanese national identity.Introducing the idea that humble goods could be inherently beautiful, leaders of the Mingei movement advocated the use of historical folk crafts as the starting point for new craft production. They assembled extensive collections and founded museums to house them. They also created model rooms in an ambitious attempt to persuade the middle classes to adopt a new hybrid lifestyle that combined both Japanese and western features.

Dish, Kanjiro Kawai, about 1930