The Arts & Crafts Movement

GRAPHIC DESIGN HISTORY / THE ARTS & CRAFTS MOVEMENT 1 / 86

1 Products of the Industrial Revolution 7

2 Graphics of the Victorian Era 25

3 The Arts & Crafts Movement 38

4 The Private Press Movement 67

1 What was the “Incunabula?”

2 Describe the difference between relief printing and planographic printing.

1 3 What was the When was “Incunabula?” photography invented?

2 Describe the difference between relief printing and planographic printing.

1 3 What was the When was “Incunabula?” photography invented?

2 WORKBOOK Describe the difference The year is 1850. You sit in front of a between relief printing and camera waiting to be photographed planographic printing. for the first time. What goes through your mind while the photographer takes your picture?

1850’S Products of the Industrial Revolution Society is forced to draw conclusions about the mounting ethical trade-offs invoked by the Industrial Revolution.

1851 The Great Exhibition of 1851 England and a number of invited countries displayed their achievements in four categories:

1. Raw Materials 2. Machinery 3. Manufacturers 4. Fine Arts

Prideful and rich from the Industrial Revolution, the English upper class organized a showcase for modern industrial technology and design. MEGGS

© Kevin Woodland, 2020 Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and family. Queen Victoria ruled England from 1837–1901 GRAPHIC DESIGN HISTORY / THE ARTS & CRAFTS MOVEMENT / Products of the Industrial Revolution 10 / 86

1851 The Crystal Palace • Hyde Park, London, England • Designed by Joseph Paxton • Unprecedented use of cast plate glass (invented 1848) • Large, strong, affordable sheets of glass

1850’S Results of the The Great Exhibition The exhibition was a popular success but the critical reviews were not so positive.

The Victorian over- decoration and hodgepodge of unrelated styles was ridiculed as symptomatic of a tasteless and over-capitalistic society.

Critics found the work created by industrialized methods to be shoddy and poorly designed, full of superfluous ornaments that did not enhance the product.

MEGGS

1853 The New York Crystal Palace • The Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations • Bryant Park, New York • Destroyed by fire, 1858

1854 The Glaspalast • First General German Industrial Exhibition • Munich, Germany • Destroyed by fire, 1931

1750–1850 Industrial Revolution Results of the new steam engine driven machines:

• Replaced craftsmen • Cheaper labor • Much faster production • Greatly inferior results Traditionally, manual laborers learned their trade by progressing through stages of apprenticeship under a master craftsman.

“The worker now served the machine, feeding it raw materials and allowing it to determine the final product.”

– MEGGS

1750–1850 Graphic Arts • Punchcutters, type casters, type setters and printers loose jobs • Book design and production declines • Book binding was mechanized and cheapened, as book craftsmen faded away.

1750–1850 Graphic Arts • Paper contains high acidic content • Ignited a string of precursors to the Arts & Crafts Movement

1800’S Graphics of the Victorian Era New products and public events in the city demanded stronger, bolder advertising efforts.

1750–1850 Graphic Arts • A new need for packaging material • A new need for graphic identity • Increased corporate competition • Heavy use of sentimental imagery • Exuberant use of chromolithography

Lithography & Intaglio Intaglio (e.g. etching, engraving), is the process of printing from recesses in the surface of printing plate or block.

Letterpress & Lithography Two competing technologies, offered printers and early graphic artists different layout possibilities.

1815 Slab Serif • Vincent Figgins draws the first slab serif typefaces, referring to them as “Antique” • Later called “Egyptian,” eventually “Slab Serif”

1820’S Fat Faces Drawn by Robert Thorne, the “fat face” style of decorative type has and extreme contrast ratio, massive downstrokes, and razor-like horizantal strokes.

1830’S Pantograph Router • Allowed draftsperson to create very precise large wooden type • View example

1850–1900 The Arts & Crafts Movement The Arts & Crafts Movement was an international design movement that reacted against mass production, both the low quality of design and the demeaning conditions under which products were produced.

1850–1900 The Arts & Crafts Movement • Began in England in the late 1800s • Essentially anti-industrial • Spread to the United States in the early decades of the 20th century • Advocated economic and social reform • Attempted to rejoin art and industry • Economies of scale worked against their goal of bringing good design to the masses

1820–1850’S John Ruskin Writer Influences A handful of radical British thinkers grapple with the role of capitalism, mechanized manufacturing, and the nauseating Victorian aesthetic.

William Pickering Claimed that the Industrial Printer Revolution resulted in:

• Eclectic borrowing from historical models • A decline in creativity • Design by engineers without aesthetic concern

Owen Jones • Believed in the value of beauty Designer

1819–1900 John Ruskin • English writer • Rejected the mercantile economy • Fought for union of art and labor • Asked how individuals could serve society • Thought art and society began to split after the Renaissance (influences the Pre-Raphaelites) • Thought industrialization and technology isolated the artist • Pointed to the design and construction of the medieval Gothic cathedral as example of the union of art and labor

1856 Owen Jones A direct result of the Great Exhibition, the pioneering work of Owen Jones redirects the Victorian aesthetic, breaks new ground in chromolithogy, and sets new design standards.

1856 The Grammar of Ornament • Printed in colorful lithographs • 20 sections of illustrated motifs • Jones’s 37 Propositions on good design In response to the failings at the Crystal Palace, a call for better understanding of design and ornamentation was answered by Owen Jones who published an exhaustive inventory of international and historical decorative styles called the Grammar of Ornament.

– MEGGS

1856 The Grammar of Ornament

Proposition 5

Construction should be decorated. Decoration should never be purposely constructed. That which is beautiful is true; that which is true must be beautiful.

OWEN JONES

1856 The Grammar of Ornament

Proposition 37

No improvement can take place in the Art of the present generation until all classes, Artists, Manufacturers, and the Public, are better educated in Art, and the existence of general principles is more fully recognized.

–OWEN JONES

1834–1896 William Morris A true Renaissance person, Morris was an author, artist, poet, publisher, socialist and public speaker.

Morris and his Pre-Raphaelite associates deeply believed that beautiful objects would improve individual lives adversely affected by the harsh industrial world.

MEGGS

The Pre-Raphaelites were a secret society of young artists (and one writer), founded in London in 1848. They were opposed to the Royal Academy’s promotion of the ideal as exemplified in the work of Raphael.

TATE LONDON

1859 Jane Burden Morris married the Pre-Raphaelite muse, Jane Burden, and commissioned a new residence, the Red House.

1859 The Red House • Bexleyheath, England • Commissioned by Morris after his marriage • Planned by Morris, designed by Phillip Webb • Morris and friends create wallpaper, tapestries, and furniture • Prioritizing artistic integrity, craftsmanship, and good design • Full of architectural nuance

1875 The Red House • “Total work of art” • All aspects contribute to a single point of view • Defined the Arts & Crafts movement • Seen in later design movements

1861 Morris & Co. • First called Morris, Marshall and Faulkner • Devoted to producing artist- designed, hand-crafted household objects

1875 Morris & Co. After some partnership disputes, Morris reorganized the partnership into Morris & Co.

• Imagery inspired by nature • Natural vegetable dye instead of chemical based inks • Wood block printed Wallpaper and textiles

1875 Morris & Co. • Refusal to use modern production methods kept costs high • Afforded only by the rich • Not the customer base he tried to reach • He hated the end result

1890’S The Private Press Movement In the graphic arts field small private presses, forming under a model created by William Morris, reawakened fine printing and revivals of classic typefaces.

1891 The Kelmscott Press During the final phase of his life Morris combined his love for medieval literature with his craftsman workshop ethic into the Kelmscott press, the first and most influential expression of the private press movement.

Kelmscott books re-awakened the lost ideals of book design and inspired higher standards of production at a time when the printed page was at its poorest.

MEGGS

1891 Kelmscott Press Joined by fellow socialist and typographic expert, Emery Walker, Morris studied early books and manuscripts from which he drew inspiration for manufacturing his own paper, ink and type design.

1891 Kelmscott Press Type Design Morris created three typefaces for use in the Kelmscott Press publications.

1891 Golden Typeface Morris photographed and enlarged Jenson’s letters and used them as the basis for his Golden Type.

1896 The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer The Kelmscott Chaucer, Morris’s masterpiece, took several years to complete.

• 556 pages • 87 wood-cut illustrations • 425 copies • 11 master printers

© Kevin Woodland, 2020 Kelmscott Press’s Chaucer, a facsimile copy on display at the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, London GRAPHIC DESIGN HISTORY / THE ARTS & CRAFTS MOVEMENT / The Private Press Movement 75 / 86

1880–1900’S Other Private Presses • The Century Guild, lead by Arthur Mackmurdo (a designer of many things) advances on Morris’ aesthetics • The Chiswick Press in London remains active in fine publishing for many years

1900 The Doves Press • Down the road from Kelmscott Press in Hammersmith • Founded by William Morris’s good friend, Emery Walker • They take a radically simple approach to book design, as an attack on the conventional typographic practice of their time

© Kevin Woodland, 2020 The founders of the Doves Press, Emery Walker and T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, Hammersmith, London GRAPHIC DESIGN HISTORY / THE ARTS & CRAFTS MOVEMENT / The Private Press Movement 82 / 86

WORKBOOK Morris and other practitioners of the Arts & Crafts wanted to make well-designed goods available to everyone, yet their labor-intensive, handmade, environmentally-conscious practices drove their prices beyond acceptable levels for ordinary people. Was their approach wrong? What could they have done differently to bring their ideals into alignment?