on Art and Socialism Edited by Norman Kelvin .V \ . , £ V! . ■’ • ii . $ ■ : '-i ■■ . ■■ ' . * ?• . 700 M83w {_Anno 1778* f # # PHILLIPS • ACADEMY # ####<§ LIBRARY #### ADAMS BOOK WILLIAM MORRIS * on Art and Socialism William Morris Edited and with an Introduction by Norman Kelvin, Distinguished Professor of English in the City College and Graduate Center, City University of New York DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC. Mineola, New York NOV 1 2 2000 7ct> A 63 w Copyright Introduction and Biographical Note copyright © 1999 by Norman Kelvin All rights reserved under Pan American and International Copyright Conventions. Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 30 Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario. Bibliographical Note This Dover edition, first published in 1999, is an unabridged republication, from standard editions, of twelve essays by William Morris. The Introduction and Biographical Note by Norman Kelvin were prepared for the Dover edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Morris, William, 1834-1896. William Morris on art and socialism / William Morris ; edited and with an introduction by Norman Kelvin, p. cm. “Unabridged republication, from standard editions, of twelve essays by William Morris”—T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-486-40904-X (pbk.) 1. Art. 2. Socialism and art. 3. Socialism. I. Kelvin, Norman. II Title. N7445.2.M675 1999 700—dc21 99-37652 CIP Manufactured in the United States of America Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501 CONTENTS A Biographical Note v Chronology vii Introduction xiii The Lesser Arts (1877) Delivered under the title “The Decorative Arts” before the Trades’ Guild of Learning, London, March 2, 1877. 1 The Art of the People (1879) Delivered as the Annual Presidential Address before the Birmingham Society of Arts and the Birmingham School of Design at the distribution of prizes by the latter, held at the Town Hall, Birmingham, February 19, 1879. 19 The Beauty of Life (1880) Delivered before the Birmingham Society of Arts and the Birmingham School of Design at the distribution of prizes by the latter, held at the Town Hall, Birmingham, February 19, 1880. 35 The Prospects of Architecture in Civilization (1881) Delivered before the London Institution, London, March 10, 1881. 56 Art and the Beauty of the Earth (1881) Delivered before the Wedgewood Institute at the Town Hall, Burslem, October 13, 1881. 80 iii IV Contents Art: A Serious Thing (1882) Delivered at the annual distribution of prizes at the Leek School of Art, Leek, on December 12, 1882. 95 Art under Plutocracy (1883) Delivered before the Russell Club at University College Hall, Oxford, November 14, 1883. The Master of Balliol was in the chair and John Ruskin also spoke. 108 Useful Work versus Useless Toil (1884) Delivered before the Hampstead Liberal Club, Hampstead, on January 16, 1884. 128 Dawn of a New Epoch (1885) Delivered at a meeting sponsored by the Oxford Branch of the Socialist League, Oxford, November 10, 1885. 144 Of the Origins of Ornamental Art (1886) Delivered before the Hammersmith Branch of the Socialist League, at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, London, on May 19, 1886. 158 The Society of the Future (1887) Delivered at a meeting sponsored by the Hammersmith Branch of the Socialist League, November 13, 1887. 174 The Present Outlook of Socialism in England (1896) Published in the American journal The Forum, for April 1896. The piece was solicited by Hiram Price Collier, editor of the journal. 185 A William Mlorris Reading List 192 A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE William Morris (1834—1896), a poet, prose-romance writer, designer, craftsman, translator, lecturer, and socialist, exerted enormous influ¬ ence as a designer and socialist lecturer in his day. At Oxford he formed what was to be a lifelong friendship with the painter Edward Burne- Jones, read Ruskin, and met Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was to be a shaping presence in both his career and private life. In 1858, The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems was published; it established Morris as a rival to Tennyson, in the opinion of some. In 1861, married to Jane Burden, and dissatisfied with available de¬ sign and manufacture of household furnishings, he founded the firm to be known as Morris & Co. He always was at the heart of its design en¬ terprise. The successful sale of wallpapers, tapestries, rugs, and furni¬ ture created the “Morris look” in British interiors, one zealously sought after by the middle classes and titled owners of fine houses. The Earthly Paradise (1868-70) and Sigurd the Volsung (1876) con¬ firmed and enhanced Morris’s reputation as a poet, but in the 1870s he turned—without giving up his other activities—to politics and to the defense (as he saw it) of England’s architectural heritage. In 1877, he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. In 1883 he became a socialist and, as lecturer, editor, and participant in public demonstrations, quickly became known as a man of the arts who was also a man of political action. This, for his contemporaries, was a para¬ dox. For Morris, it was no paradox, for there was for him no possible separation between art and politics, as his many lectures and some of his late romances, notably News from Nowhere (1890), make clear. As a translator, Morris’s best-known achievement was a series of translations from the Icelandic that were published as The Saga Library. For him, and for many who see him as the father of modern design, especially in the book arts, his crowning achievement was the Kelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891 and which is generally cred¬ ited with bringing to high awareness at the end of the 19th century— v VI Biographical Note and thus for our time—the importance of “getting it right” when ver¬ bal texts and graphic images are to be integrated. His marriage to Jane Burden (in 1859) was less than happy, though it lasted his lifetime, but his two daughters, Jenny and May, were devoted to him. He found an object for his love in Jenny, a chronic epileptic, and a comrade and help¬ mate in May, to whom we are indebted for editing and publishing her father’s Collected Works in twenty-four volumes, plus two supplemen¬ tary volumes. CHRONOLOGY Based on “A Calendar of Principal Events in Morris’s Life,” May Morris, William Morris: Artist, Writer, Socialist, II (Oxford; 1936), 632-37; and on The Collected Letters, edited by Norman Kelvin (Princeton University Press: 1984-1996). 1834 William Morris born, March 24, at Elm House, Walthamstow. 1840 Family moves to Woodford Hall, Walthamstow. 1847 Father dies. 1848 Goes to school at Marlborough. Family moves to Water House, Walthamstow. 1851 Leaves school at Christmas, after school rebellion in November. 1852 Reads with Dr. F. B. Guy, Forest School, Walthamstow. Matriculates at Exeter College, Oxford, in June. Plans to pre¬ pare for the Church. 1853 Goes to Oxford in January. Meets Edward Burne-Jones, C. J. Faulkner, R. W. Dixon, Harry Macdonald, and William Ful- ford. In rooms at Exeter College by December. During this and following year reads Ruskin’s Stones of Venice, Carlyle’s Past and Present, Thorp’s Northern Mythologies, and Charlotte Yonge’s The Heir of Redclyffe. 1854 Visits Belgium and Northern France in the summer, seeing the paintings of Memling and Van Eyck, and Amiens, Beauvais, and Rouen cathedrals. Meets Cormell Price. Reads Ruskin’s Edinburgh Lectures and becomes aware of the Pre- Raphaelites. Morris, Burne-Jones, and their circle plan a monastic brotherhood. Vll viii Chronology 1855 Reads Chaucer and Malory. Makes second tour of France, accompanied by Burne-Jones and Fulford. Morris decides not to take orders, and to follow art as a career. 1856 Edits and finances the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine. Articled to G. E. Street, the architect, in whose Oxford office he meets Philip Webb. Takes his B.A. degree. Moves to London with Street’s office and shares rooms with Burne- Jones. Meets Rossetti and abandons architecture for painting by end of the year. 1857 Decorative work begins at 17 Red Lion Square. Frescoes in the Oxford Union painted, under leadership of Rossetti. Meets Jane Burden. Macmillan rejects The Defence of Guenevere. 1858 The Defence of Guenevere published by Bell and Daldy at Morris’s own expense. With Faulkner and Webb, visits France again. 1859 Morris and Jane Burden married on April 26. Tour of France, Belgium, and the Rhineland. Philip Webb builds Red House, at Upton, Kent, for them. 1860 Morrises move into Red House. Edward Burne-Jones and Georgiana Macdonald married on June 9. 1861 Firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. founded. Jane Alice (“Jenny”) born January 17. Morris begins writing sto¬ ries for The Earthly Paradise. 1862 Mary (“May”) Morris born March 25. Firm shows work at the Great Exhibition and is awarded two gold medals. 1864 Morris ill with rheumatic fever. The Burne-Joneses decide against sharing Red House, and the plan for a “Palace of Art” there is abandoned. 1865 Red House sold to a retired naval officer and Morris family moves to 26 Queen Square, London, where the firm also sets up shop. 1866 The Earthly Paradise takes form. Morris visits France again, with Warington Taylor and William Fulford. 1867 The Life and Death of Jason, originally intended as a tale in The Earthly Paradise, published separately in January. Firm begins decoration of dining room at South Kensington Museum. Chronology IX 1868 The Earthly Paradise, Volume I, published in April. Morris begins studying Icelandic with Eirikr Magnusson. 1869 “The Saga of Gunnlaug Worm-tongue” published in the Fortnightly Review (January). The Story of Grettir the Strong published in June. Morris takes his wife to Bad Ems for her health.