The simple life: The arts and crafts movement in Great Britain

Magazine Antiques, Oct, 1999 by Wendy Kaplan

In the 1880s the first guilds were formed, inspired by the medieval ideal of craft associations that maintained standards of workmanship. The Century Guild was founded in 1882 by the architect Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo and the designer-illustrator Selwyn Image. Following the model established by Morris and Company, it aimed "to restore building, decoration, glass painting, pottery, wood-carving and metal to their rightful places beside painting and sculpture."(4) Mackmurdo was also greatly influenced by Ruskin, with whom he traveled to Italy. During its six years of existence the guild was remarkable both for the range and quality of its furnishings, textiles, metalwork, and books [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATES I AND VI OMITTED].

While not a company like the Century Guild, the Art Workers' Guild was hugely influential as a disseminator of arts and crafts ideology. Formed in 1884 under the motto Art Is Unity, this private and exclusively male society brought together architects, painters, and designers for lectures, debates, and demonstrations of craft processes. Many of its members believed that an organization with a more public forum should be established. They wanted their work to be exhibited in order to challenge the narrow definition of artistic worthiness established by the Royal Academy of Art and the Royal Institute of British Architects. Since a principal goal was to elevate the status of design, the proposed exhibition was to be called The Combined Arts. The bookbinder Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson (1840-1922) suggested instead Arts and Crafts as the name for the exhibition, which was held in 1888. Thereafter the name was associated with the entire movement.

The arts and crafts reformers wanted both to change the way buildings and objects looked and how they were made. The first goal was more obtainable than the second, which embodied the fundamental paradox of the arts and crafts ethic: how to make sure that the individual craftsman feels fulfilled by the process of making the work of art while at the same time making the resulting works available to more people than ever before. As Morris put it: "What business have we with art at all, unless all can share it?"(5) However, craft is labor intensive and a fair wage for handwork usually precludes large-scale production.

Ernest Gimson provided a model for the arts and crafts devotee. By dint of energy, talent, and an independent income he created an alternative to urban, factory production. Leaving London in 1893, he set up a craft workshop in the bucolic Cotswold hills. Following the dictates of Morris, his mentor, he gathered a group of craftsmen skilled at furniture making and metalwork. He paid them liberally by the standards of the day and provided many with housing near the workshops. Although he tried to design simple, affordable furniture, one of his assistants noted that despite keeping the profit margin low:

It was a real disappointment that he could not produce this cottage-type furniture at a price that working class people could afford to pay, but with these highly trained men and the perfect finish required, too many hours were spent on each piece for this to be possible.(6)