Dr Isabella Rosner
Appearances
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yes. He had so much going on. I mean, he was an architect, a designer, a practitioner of several self-taught crafts. He taught himself how to paint, how to make furniture, how to make tapestries. He was also a really acclaimed and talented writer, a poet, a translator. He was actually offered a largely honorary but still very impressive professorship of poetry at Oxford, but he turned it down. Oh.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Sure, we've all been there. We've all been there. You just got too much to do. I understand. Too busy. He was such a machine. He was just constantly giving lectures and constantly writing about his beliefs. He was a socialist eventually, kind of later in his life.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And it meant that by the end of his life in 1896, he saw all of his ideas kind of grow, flourish and become this arts and crafts movement throughout Britain. He wasn't without anger. He once broke down a door with his foot. But he, I don't want to paint a too positive or too negative a picture of him. Everybody's a complicated person, but he seems like he had, speaking of vibes, great vibes.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
It's footlights. It's footlights, guys. It's... Pretty wholesome, because he just kind of lucked into being friends with all these people, kind of. So in 1852, he goes to Oxford. He's at Exeter College. And he really soon meets Edward Burne-Jones, who is another, you've heard of this guy, right? Big arts and crafts figure as well. They're in the same college in the same year. They live together.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And they actually both are training to be priests. But by the end of their education, they're like, nah, no. I'm leaving the church. Like, I'm going to be an artist.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
He, after his degree, trains with an architecture firm. He's a trainee architect after university. And between his time in Oxford and his time as a trainee architect, he is... It's kind of surrounded by all these people who share his ideals and his ethos. And so Edward Burne-Jones is there. And then he marries Georgiana MacDonald. Edward does.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And then when they get married, Georgiana Burne-Jones joins the social circle. There's also the architect Philip Webb. There's also the pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Have you heard of him? Is that a name that people know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's one of the more famous. He's one of the hot, sexy men of the 19th century. Oh, I love.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
I don't know if his impact is as felt in the US, so I'm still like, what's the vibe? He's definitely up there as a boy. A boy Rossetti. Okay, perf. We love that. So I don't even need to go into him. But I would like to. Hey, hello. Hello. How do I carry on after that? I know, I'm so sorry. No, it's great. Burne-Jones was his apprentice.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And so then Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Morris become like a tight trio, having a great time. Then there's also the embroidery artist and model Jane Burden. Jane Burden is the daughter of a stableman, and she is, quote-unquote, discovered by at the theater in Oxford by Rossetti and Burne-Jones.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And she starts modeling for Rossetti and then she starts modeling for Morris and they actually end up getting married. They marry in 1859. Unfortunately for William Morris in this situation, eight years after Jane and Morris get married and have two daughters and after Rossetti's Wife, Elizabeth Siddle, unfortunately passes away very tragically. They start having an affair.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And Morris and Jane Morris and Rossetti all live together at Kelmscott Manor, which is Morris's family home from 1871 to 1896. Yeah.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
I it's a relationship. There's a lot of discourse around it. And it seems like he wasn't clearly opposed. It was in his house. But I think that he knew that Jane and Dante, they had a lot of chemistry. And he was like, Oh, how can I stand in the way of this thing?
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah, it seems a little bit like he's just shrugging and being like, fine.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yes. Well, also embroidering. And modeling. She's doing it all with her very beautiful hair. She's absolutely killing it. Love that for her.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Commune is where I'd go, but, you know... It can very quickly become a cult. He perhaps was just so extroverted, like, I really feel this. If I could just live with four of my friends all the time, I would love that. Maybe he was just like me.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a full-on adult man by this point.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Relatable king. That's me about most things, I feel.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah. So in 1857, I was going to say our boy. Is he our boy? He's one of our boys. John Ruskin, one of our boys, commissions our other boys, Rossetti, and then therefore William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. So many boys in this. Yeah, I know. Boys on boys. So basically, Ruskin commissions Rossetti to do a mural. Rossetti's like, come on through, Morris and Burne-Jones, join me.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And then they're also joined by a variety of other arts and crafts painters. to do these murals of Arthurian legend. Jane Burden is the model. My favorite is that yesterday I was like looking up the Wikipedia article for this because I was curious about what they said. And they call the artistic process, quote, notoriously chaotic.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Because we forget that for the most part, not Rossetti, but these other folks were about 23 years old and just kind of having a nice time. They're really talented painters, but they... Classic commune vibes.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
So they're painting and Morris ends up actually painting his mural really quickly. And they don't realize that you actually have to plaster a wall or at least create enough of an underpainting to paint on top of. So they're painting and then the bare bricks are visible basically immediately. And it got restored in 1986. Oh, how sad. When you try so hard and you don't succeed. Yeah.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Oh, it's so cute. Again, very wholesome, light commune vibes. All the friends and fam are there and they are collaborating to decorate and furnish it. So there are pre-Raphaelite style wall paintings and stained glass. And it's Rosetti who's painting as well as Elizabeth Siddle, his wife, Edward Bird Jones, always there as well.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
They're all contributing to these mural paintings and the furniture decoration. And Philip Webb, hilariously, actually designs a Gothic cart to collect guests from the train station to bring to the house. I would like it for myself. Yeah. But they weren't there for that long. So they move in in 1860. And by 1865, they move back to central London and they sell it by 1866. Wow.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
But like the commune vibes of it all get more extreme. Okay. In 1861... One of the friends, this painter named Ford Maddox Brown, suggests that, yeah, you've heard of him, right? All these big names. He suggests that he, William Morris, Burne-Jones, Webb, Rossetti, and some other folks that they establish a design firm. And they do. And it's called Morris Marshall Faulkner and Company.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Doesn't roll off the tongue. Does not. But then by 1875, it's Morris and Company. And that's what we still have today. But what I love is that they simply called it the firm. Oh, the firm. The boys are in the firm. You know, my guy's in the firm.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah, they were all pretty good businessmen. William Morris was a great businessman. So they were in it for 14 years. And then there was a restructuring and the other guys left. And then it was William Morris as just him. That's when it became Morrison Company. But yeah, they were kind of killing it.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
They're doing everything. And it's actually really successful and convenient for them that this is a time, it's the 1860s, when the Gothic revival has meant that there are churches popping up all over the place. So there are new churches and old churches that are being restored, and they are the people who are making all the stained glass for that.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And they're actually so successful, they're so skilled, that at the 1862 International Exhibition, they were accused of touching up original medieval artwork. Right. It was their artwork. They're just really good at what they do. I know. But then by the late 1860s, the interest in church work, the amount of churches that were being built, had shrunk.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
So things were kind of moving towards secular commissions. But they were doing everything from furniture to embroideries, jewelry, carpets, woven textiles, tapestries, metal and glassware, and wall hangings. Like, if you wanted it, you could get it from them.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And the meatballs are delicious. Yeah, maybe they also made great meatballs. I don't know. You know, they were really mindful about their employees. This was part of their effort to make this art as accessible as possible and to get everybody involved. So they actually started hiring and training as apprentices, boys from the industrial home for destitute boys on Euston Road in central London.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah, it's basically to give them skills and opportunities that they wouldn't have otherwise. And I think that is absolutely rad. But it wasn't just boys. I mean, women were involved in Morris and Company from the very beginning. So decorative tiles were being painted by Lucy and Kate Faulkner, who were sisters of Charles Faulkner, who was one of the other members of the firm.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And then Georgiana Byrne-Jones, she was involved in the tiles as well. And like every woman in Morris's family was involved in the embroidery. So his wife, Jane, embroidering his sister-in-law, Elizabeth, or Bessie Burden, embroidering his two daughters, May and Jenny, embroidering. It was a whole family affair. They were involved.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Get your needle! Your knots and cuffs! Okay, sorry. Luckily for him, one of them loved it. One of them, yeah. I don't know as much about Jenny because she had epilepsy. So she was just, you know, she was ill a lot of the time. But Mae Morris, man, I'm going to spill some facts later. And she was a keen embroidery bean.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
yeah merton abbey okay yeah um that's in 1881 and and so they're sort of pivoting to interior design they did a dining room at the vna or what is now the vna yes yes so they did the green dining room this was the first museum cafe in the world is that the one that's still there now yes oh it's just so beautiful yeah and it has all of these like images of nature and plants and fruits in the turning year and it
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
evokes this idea of, you know, old green England. And that's exciting, not only because we still have it today, but also because it shows that they were making efforts to be part of this movement of making art accessible to all.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
It creates wealth that you can have a house that you want a tapestry for. Right. Yeah, they're reacting against it and they're also benefiting from it. Yeah. Because by the 1860s and 70s, there is a lot more wealth than there was before. So there's an increase in white collar jobs. There's improvements in state education. That's what we were just talking about with those destitute boys.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
By one estimate, the average income per head of household doubles between 1850 and 1900. And the middle class triples in size. So, yeah, more people with more money. meant that there was more interest in buying more objects. How many times can I say the word more in a sentence? But that is the vibe. It's more is more.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
artisan skills back to a middle class that's happy to buy it 100 so part of the thing is they have really i think very admirable ideas and goals but their process their this movement is not helping or affecting the people who are most hurt by the terrible working conditions of victorian england yeah
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
I wore this and I was like, maybe it's going to be him giving me his blessing. And he'll be like, you're doing great. But I'm a little bit scared that he will actually be violently turning in his grave. And I'm going to be talking about him while wearing this.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
No! It's every Ceramics' nightmare. But not even just the kiln, like his whole workshop. Oh my God.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
He lives though. He survives. And then he just moves. He's like, see ya. He moves to Chaney Walk. Very fancy. Love that for him. And he then actually has success with his various experimentations and he becomes renowned for... His stained glass windows and his tiles with Islamic decoration and his furniture.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And in 1882, the year after Morris and company moves to Merton Abbey, he too moves to Merton Abbey for his business. And, you know, Morris, I think, has the power to bring people in not only like artistically and emotionally, but also physically. Yeah, gentrifying area. Just get all up into Merton Abbey and make it beautiful.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
britain's hottest spot i have no idea what merton abbey is to be honest it's near wimbledon i don't know what it is it used to be like a historic calico area but it meant that he william morris had created a world where other craftsmen were all working together to furnish big houses and churches he's the beyonce of the arts and crafts movement if he does a country album everybody thinks hey maybe we can all add this influence to our genre yeah he's a
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Beautifully said. He is the Beyonce. I think he would love to know that he is the Beyonce.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah, she's most well known for her garden design. But she also was doing all sorts of interiors, including designing embroidery and doing the embroidery herself. Wow. And she had a great name, Gertrude Jekyll. It's a great name.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
But she really encapsulates this arts and crafts interest in blending together outdoor space and indoor space. They wanted these arts and crafts homes to have conversations between gardens and... and the interior.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah, yeah. The movement goes across the Atlantic and hits the US as well. via things like journals and lectures from people who are in the movement. It was going to the US after World War I. It was going to Japan. It had Thank you. Thank you.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
I think we should start with an overview. I hope that's okay. Just set the scene. So the arts and crafts movement is an art movement, as you could guess. That begins sometime in the late 19th century. Nobody can agree on the exact start date. Some people put it at 1861, which is when William Moore starts getting on the scene. Other people say it doesn't really start until the 1870s or 1880.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And it lasts until about the beginning of World War I. The movement is a style of art. It's primarily domestic furnishings, and it promotes craftsmanship and aesthetic unity between all sorts of objects in the home. And those would range from textiles to furniture to ceramics to metalwork and everything in between.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
I've invented acrylic plastics.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
I mean, nothing changes things like war, I would say. So World War I comes in and the aesthetic changes massively. People don't have the need or desire for any of this fine craftsmanship anymore anymore. the war comes and all of a sudden it's modernism.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And deco and like what comes after it. So while the arts and crafts movement technically ends at World War I here in Britain, it does have ripples in other places. So the American movement goes and becomes its own thing with like architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It's going to places like Hungary, Poland and Finland, where there's a real interest in traditional handicraft skills. It starts in Japan and
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
at World War I and after. So the implications are felt kind of far and wide. And even though, yeah, the movement is definitely over, we are still in a world where we are kind of constantly seeing arts and crafts images. So is it really over?
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. Maybe it's the friends we made along the way. Yeah.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Really? Your stopwatch? I'm scared. Okay. If you ever see a William Morris design, whether it be on wallpaper, an advent calendar, or a fridge magnet, chances are it's probably Morris' work called Strawberry Thief. Not only is it Morris' most beloved pattern, it's also one of the most popular textile designs ever. It's inspired everything from a novel to a video game.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
It has some overlap with other contemporary art movements at the same time or just a little bit previously, and those include the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the Aesthetic Movement, and even Art Nouveau. The name itself comes from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. That's a very long name for a society, I think, but okay.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
You can find Strawberry Thief-covered products on the shelves of John Lewis, Waitrose, M&S, Waterstones, and even Pets at Home, truly fulfilling Morris' desire to make his art accessible. With Strawberry Thief, Morris captures the thrushes that he caught stealing fruit in his garden at Kelmscott Manor. Amidst multicolored flowers, scrolling vines, and frilly leaves are pairs of birds.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Those with yellow and pink wings have their mouths agape. Are they shocked that they've been caught mid-tweet or mid-munch? The birds with blue wings are the thieves in question, looking very satisfied with plump strawberries hanging from their beaks. Morris felt that everyone should have access to beautiful surroundings, rest, and work that inspires satisfaction and pride.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And he was deliberate about what sorts of products should be made from each of his designs. In its original form back in 1883, Strawberry Thief was a printed cotton furnishing textile intended to be used for curtains, walls, or loose covers on furniture.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Morris printed it using the indigo discharge method, a many centuries-old technique primarily used in Asia that took an especially long time to produce. Because of this, Strawberry Thief was one of the most expensive printed furnishings available from Morris & Company.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
But the price didn't stop those little strawberry-stealing birds from becoming one of Morris' most commercially successful patterns. Clearly, the commercial success of Strawberry Thief lives on. 140-ish years after the textile was produced, some things are different, though. That pattern isn't limited to furnishing fabrics, and it isn't expensive.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
This is the case for other arts and crafts movement designs, too. William Morris did intend his work to be widely available, but he was also strategic and specific about how and on what objects his designs should be used. Beautiful. Look at that. Look at that. Two minutes and two seconds. I'm sweaty.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
They loved wordiness, didn't they? So that Exhibition Society was founded in 1887 to exhibit decorative arts alongside fine arts. And it had exhibitions in London from 1888 to 1890. And there was one guy in it in particular, Thomas James Cobden Sanderson, speaking of long Victorian names, who first coined the term in 1887. William Morris is considered the head honcho. He's the daddy.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
The Royal School of Needlework. I'll accept it. It's hard because everything, if it's not a school, it's an institute, it's a guild. It's all of the words keep appearing again and again.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Thank you so much for having me. I've had the best time.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
He's the grand poomba in the situation. It's his ideas and view of the world that inspires so much of the movement.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Do you have to have like a... Who decides who's in and who's out? It seems like just a vibe. A vibe, okay. And it's kind of a term that we use to encapsulate people bound together by an ethos rather than a specific crew. They were all people with similar ideals at a similar time.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah. Do you want to read the quote for us? Yeah. He says, and he's giving this lecture in December of 1877 to the Trades Guild of Learning. And I think he summarizes... What a great... Shout out to the Trades Guild of Learning. The Trades Guild of Learning. My favorite Trades Guild. Also, Trades Guild. Like, so confusing to say, but that's fine.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
He summarizes his feelings about kind of everything really well when he says, I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few or freedom for a few. He's really about... Art and wellness for everybody, as many people as possible. He's got great vibes, I think, generally, William Morris. William Morris fan club over here.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
He and the other arts and crafts people are really invested in handicraft and utilizing... really learned skills to create beautiful, pleasant, pleasing, comfortable, useful objects.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Enclosure. Enclosure. So you have enclosure.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Oh boy, you should have been in the Arts and Crafts movie. I would have loved it. I love the clothes. I love the vibe. It's all vibes. It's all vibes for me. But yeah, exactly. Like Victorian London, Victorian Britain saw a huge amount of change when it came to industrialization in good and bad ways.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
So in terms of the population, by 1851, the census tells us that more people live in cities than in the countryside. Right. That's a big change. You have huge numbers of people flocking to industrial city centers. But the conditions are bad oftentimes.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
People are living in slum conditions and slum housing with overcrowding and a lack of sanitation and generally just bad living situations, lots of disease. And industrialization is good for some people, for a lot of people, in that it means that there are more affordable items available to more people. But the actual manufacture is gnarly. The work is dangerous. The work hours are crazy long.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
The pay was abysmal. Disease is everywhere. And it's usually children who are most affected by this in the Victorian period. And I have a... I was going to say a fun fact. It's the opposite of a fun fact. I have an un-fun fact. A grim fact. A grim fact for you. So by the 1850s, the average life expectancy for mechanics, laborers, and their families in Manchester was 17.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Compare that to 38 years old in rural Rutland. So... Nobody is thriving. Nobody's thriving. 38 is also a terrible age to die at. But an average age of 17 to pass away at is so dark. A big leap, isn't it?
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Mostly it's children, right. So, you know, that's...
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yes, they really romanticize it and idealize it. And they're interested in the medieval world because they perceive it as having a better run society and a better run system for making goods. So they are kind of idealizing and dreaming about this system where objects were produced in small scale workshops rather than these large, anonymous, brutal factories.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And they're looking for artisan sourdough bread. They literally are. They are the cottagecore folks of the late Victorian era. They would be happy in East London now. They are so obsessed with this medieval world, but they aren't alone in that.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
There are loads of people in the 19th century, especially artists who are involved in various art movements, who are really looking to the medieval period as this perfect moment in society. They're not right. but they are looking at it through rose-colored glasses. And they're like, wow, those guys, they had it so correct.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
But it wasn't surprising that they were interested in that because that was the artistic world. They were kind of becoming adults in all of these arts and crafts people. There was the Gothic revival in the 19th century, especially in architecture. And it meant that kind of wherever you looked, there were Gothic-style buildings.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And we can see that influence all over the place, not just in art, but there was also... this increased influence in romantic poetry and more study of folklore. And Walter Scott was writing these historical romances. And Alfred Lord Tennyson was writing Arthurian literature. And there is such a drive to look to this dreamed up past.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah, so he is a leading figure in that Gothic revival movement. And he thought that society would be morally better, which is a bold move already, if art, design, and industry were reimagined along pre-industrial lines. He was like, let's just get rid of mechanization. We'd actually all be emotionally and morally better people.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And he saw that the best, the most good period was the medieval period. And he saw it in Gothic architecture. Right. And he liked the medieval stuff for the same reason that the arts and crafts people liked the medieval stuff. It was him viewing this period as a time when craftsmen were celebrated and honored and they lived in a society that was unaffected by corruption and immorality, which is...
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
So bold, but go off him. Yeah, tell Martin Luther, come on. But he went a step kind of further where he basically equated a nation's social health to the way it made its goods. So he was very, very interested in how production happened. And he wrote this trilogy of books between 1851 and 1853 called The Stones of Venice. And that middle volume was called The Nature of the Gothic.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
And that became an arts and crafts manifesto. And he said... For art and design to be successful and morally uplifting an artist needed to be involved in every single step of the artistic process.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
So there was another leading figure of the Gothic revival movement named Augustus Pugin. Oh, who did the Houses of Parliament. And Pugin dies, and then Ruskin starts writing like, his ideas were the worst. I hate this guy. Like, they were in the same movement, but Ruskin was like, this guy's trash. He had some spicy opinions and he was not afraid to let you know them.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Yeah, so Augustus Pugin did do the interiors of the Palace of Westminster.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
How did he get his start? Okay, so he was basically, as we've already discussed, the guy when it comes to the arts and crafts movement. And he's born in 1834 in Walthamstow to a wealthy middle-class family. His dad is a broker in the city of London. His mom comes from a bourgeois family in Worcester. He's comfortably fancy. And his childhood was punctuated by his father's death, so not all great.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
But other than that, some pretty good times. He read a lot and had a nice time. He would wander through the woods at his family's house called Woodford Hall, which was in Essex. And he also spent time in the nearby woods of Epping Forest. And my favorite fact is...
You're Dead to Me
The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle
is that he had a miniature suit of armor medieval suit of armor made for him and he used to wander through epping forest on his pony in the suit of armor oh love that for him my personal dream would love that for me and his childhood home in walthamstow is now the willie moore's gallery yes beautiful beautiful very beautiful great exhibitions as well yeah very good place to visit yeah so good