The Arts and Crafts Movement

The Arts and Crafts Movement originated in Britain around the late nineteenth century. The men that lead this movement, such as William Morris worked towards uniting the arts. They believed that all creative work was equal of value. In addition to reforming design, they wanted to give quality to the work process. The aim of this Movement was to establish harmony amongst architects, designers and craftsman, and everyday objects were to be produced by handcraftsmanship and be affordable. 

The concept of individual expression of design was shared between its leaders. Furniture, was honest and simple. It was even left unpainted in order to allow the way that it was built to be illustrated and the true nature of the wood would be celebrated when left unpolished.

The improvement towards commercial design was also another goal of this Movement. It was William Morris, who was among the first who realized that the only method to ascertain a bigger availability to his products was with the use of commercial co-operation.

New links were made between the craft and the industry and in fact, the machine became accepted as a manufacturing need.  For a few, the Arts and Crafts was part of a bigger spectrum of social reformation. Meanwhile, there were those who thought that reform was needed in regards to the working conditions rather than to the design aesthetic.

Ironically enough though, the only way the Movement could develop was through industrial achievement. The ideal against industry; that a single person could create an object from start to finish, was not achieved often, and to such extent there was a dependence upon multiple production.

The four values that were combined by the Arts and Crafts are; design unity, joy in labour, individualism, and regionalism.

The Movement, was set up by theorists, who wished to be able to make a new code to the harshness the industrialization brought with it. In Britain, there was not any particular style adopted. W.R Lethaby, in his book ‘Architecture, Mysticism and Myth’, wrote: ‘the message will be of nature and man, of order and beauty, but all will be sweetness, simplicity, freedom, confidence and light’.

Amongst those who left London and moved into the countryside to seek particularly for what Lethaby said, included; C.R Ashbee, Ernest Gimson and Eric Gill.

Many British Arts and Crafts leaders, like Lethaby, were socialists. These people were eager to eliminate divisions between art and industry and between art and craft, and this was to be achieved through artistic intervention.  

                                                                                              

The Arts and Crafts movement however, was not a reaction to the industrial society; it was progressed from the strict design morality of the Gothic Revival in early Victorian Britain.

A. W. N. Pugin Metropolitan Cathedral of St.Chad, Birmingham, 1839-41. Interior

However, not all theorists agreed. Pugin, for instance, was not in conformity with the early Victorian vogue for classical architecture. In fact, it was the preindustrial England that gave him inspiration. In ‘Contrasts’ he stated for the first time that architectural beauty depended on ‘the fitness of the design to the purpose for which it is intended’.

John Ruskin and William Morris continued Pugin’s belief of re-uniting the designer and the craftsman. These are the two main founders of the Arts and Crafts Movement. In ‘The Seven Lamps of Architecture’, Ruskin highlighted the beauty of architectural ornament carved by hand, which reflected ‘the sense of human labour and care spent upon it’.

Owen Jones, 'Egyptian No.1' The Grammar of Ornament 1856

British design reformers did not collaborate with the technically more difficult, naturalistic qualities of the foreign designs. Instead they supported geometric formality. Owen Jones for instance, took a mathematical approach to colour and design instead of the imitations of nature.

Christopher Dresser Electroplate teapot

Ruskin opened to what Jones believed in and he was in favour of freedom of expression and the taking nature as a direct source. Ruskin was the one to introduce morality to art and design. He used to say that by reforming the arts, society would be improved. Christopher Dresser, lead a counter-attack on Ruskin. While Ruskin wanted to represent nature’s appearance, Dresser wanted design to represent the laws of natural growth. Dressers scientific approach and qualifications, gained him respect. His designs reflecting his theory, were simplified, angular and cheap to manufacture.

Ruskin demanded too, a design that used a natural scale, form and materials in order to express ‘man’s delight in God’s work’.

However, even though Ruskin’s lectures were popular, and his writings were widely read and admired, it was William Morris whose ideas employed the longest and most powerful influence.

Morris’ said; ‘apart from my desire, to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life is hatred of modern civilization’. He took Ruskin’s love of the handwork and the roughness of the craft and he longed for this application towards commerce. He wanted most to be able to challenge manufacturers to simplify their design. He wanted so raise the standards and to maintain the unit costs at an affordable level, capturing together both the designer and the craftsman.

Morris followed Ruskin’s footsteps in accordance to nature used as an inspiration, but he used this also as a part of a new design movement. Morris had also an interest in textiles that emerged from his time as an Oxford apprentice to the G.E. Street.

Morris also looked at Oxfordshire vernacular architecture with Street’s senior draughtsman, Philip Webb. He and Webb were especially committed to honesty in architectural thinking. This made them different from most high Victorian architects. They considered for instance, that an architect’s design should be a reflection both of its site and purpose.

In 1859 Morris commissioned Webb to design a house for him and his bride; the Red House, in Bexleyheath, Kent that took its name from its construction material, red brick. The Red House, was the very first Arts and Crafts building. It was also the most significant over the next half century. This was the first house that resulted from a new partnership between the architect and the artist. This is illustrated in its concept and its furnishings. One may notice an agreement with the Gothic that is found in the simple and pointed arches that are found inside the house. In addition, the building was planned from the inside out to meet the needs of everyday family life. The house was also designed to fit into the local building traditio

This House was not designed according to any particular rule regarding a style; it was the actual arrangement of the rooms that was what shaped it. Webb’s design was a line of rooms and these were placed along a corridor forming an L shape. This gave a sense of intimacy and created an informal environment to those who visited. His ideas, which were interpreted in a lot of designs, could be recognized due to its common principles rather than a style. For the next half century, function was given the priority, and structures were related to their landscapes.

They continued on what Pugin dictated:  ‘There should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction or propriety’, published in ‘True Principles’. A building should be honest, reflecting the materials and carefully in context to its site. He had practiced what he preached in the house he made for himself in Ramsgate, Kent 1843-44.

Morris designed the garden of the Red House. It encompasses both a romantic notion and practicality. This was combined with a medieval mixture of orchards and garden plots. The type of decoration used for the furnishing of the house, has a medieval Gothic alternative to the dramatic, medieval designs of the 1860’s by the London ‘art-architect’ William Burgess.

Many were those American designers who were inspired by the British Arts and Crafts Movement and what it demonstrated. William Morris’ and Charles R. Ashbee’s support of rural artistic communities appealed to American designers such as Gustav Stickley, Charles P.Limbert and Elbert G.Hubbard who were in search of refuge from the increasing industrialization of their country.

However, the American Arts and Crafts designs were in general less complicated with regards to construction, it was also less decorated than their British equals. This was so because it was the fundamental, social and democratic aspects of the Movement rather than its emphasis on best craftsmanship that appealed to designers in the United States. 

Bibliography:

Charlotte and Peter Fiell. Design of the 20^th Century 

Elizabeth Cumming, Wendy Kaplan. The Arts and Crafts Movement 

The Bauhaus

The beginnings of what good design is, is demonstrated in the Bauhaus. Here, design was innovative, functional and honest. The Bauhaus was the most celebrated art school representing the modern era and it was closed down, as instructed by the Nazi Government on 11^th April 1933.

Peter Behrens who was the chief designer of AEG had left Berlin for private architectural business, and amongst the people who he had working with him was Charles Edouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier. So did Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, these were two directors of the Bauhaus. Therefore Behrens's ideas and activities were of both a detriment and influence to the Bauhaus. 

During the Great Exhibition held in the Crystal Palace, whilst there where those who were impressed, others were shocked by what they saw before them. One of the latter was William Morris.  Morris held the opinion that it was not honest for a machine manufactured good to pretend that it was made by hand. He believed that the effects the industrial production had left were spiritually destructive to the art of the craftsmen. Morris aimed at the revival of the traditional craftsmanship, unfortunately however, his ideas did not flourish since the products produced would be affordable only to the rich.

Peter Behrens, illustrated the way in which the concerns of Morris found concrete expression in Germany. In 1903 he was appointed as the director of the arts and crafts school at Düsseldorf and comprehending the repercussions of industrialization and the potential of the machine, he restructured the school’s curriculum in an attempt to reunite traditional craftsmanship and the mechanized production. This therefore illustrates that what William Morris began, was continued in the Bauhaus since Behrens was a huge influence on the people connected to the Bauhaus.

Walter Gropius was chosen in 1919, not to create a new school but to direct the combined academy, which was already in existence. When he was given the permission to give the school a name, he chose the name ‘the State Bauhaus’. With this name, Gropius’ plan was to envision the impression of sowing or nurturing what was already in existence.

‘Four years of the Bauhaus reflect not only a period of art history, but a history of the ties, too, because the disintegration of a nation and of an era is also reflected in it’- Oskar Schlemmer.

This statement shows that the history of the Bauhaus was shaped upon the social and cultural context of those years. The Bauhaus lasted until the Weimar Republic, before Hitler was appointed.

The first months of the Bauhaus are demonstrated by the willpower to reform art education as well as by the creation of a new type of society. Unfortunately though, it had to redefine its aims and had to merge realism into the picture.

In the subsequent years of the school, ideas of self-expression where replaced by rational ones and this introduced essential changes in the curriculum and teaching methods. This occurred during the time when the economy of Germany was steady and the notion of the industry began to grow. At this time, political extremities gained also their strengths and directly effected the Bauhaus.

Walter Gropius was a soldier during World War I, and he became anti-capitalist, so he favored more the ideals relating to the craft of the Helgar workshops rather than the Deutscher Werkbund and their beliefs relating to industrial production.

According to Walter Gropius, construction was not only essential, but also a symbolic and intellectual attempt and this belief was infused into the Bauhaus teachings. The school’s curriculum included one year of an introductory course. Here students were taught the basic principles of design and colour theory. Succeeding this year, student could then enter a variety of workshops, specializing into one. The tutors were known as ‘masters’, while the students were referred to as ‘apprentices’.

'Gyula Pap' candelebra made in the metal workshop in Weimar 1922-1923

Throughout the first year of the school, Gropius appointed three artists to join the academy. These were; Johannes Itten, who was responsible for the preliminary course, Lyonel Feininger and Gerhard Marcks. Later, others Expressionists joined them including; Georg Muche, Paul Klee and Oscar Schlemmer and Wassily Kandinsky. During the earliest period of the Bauhaus it was Itten who played the most important role.

Itten’s classes, frequently begun with breathing exercises and gymnastics and these were based upon ‘intuition and method’ or ‘subjective experience and objective recognition’. Itten taught theories of form, colour and contrast together with the history of art. Apprentices were taught the importance of elemental geometric forms such as the circle and the square. Similarly to Kandinsky, Itten attempted to reestablish the spiritual to art.

During an exhibition which was thrown to justify financial aid, work for the De Stijl movement was also demonstrated and this indicates how this movement inspired the Bauhaus. In fact, Theo van Doesburg had lectured in Weimar.

Poster of Bauhaus exhibition in Copper-Hewitt for a class project

In this exhibition, the ‘New Typography’ of the Bauhaus which was inspired by the De Stijl and the Russian Constructivism movements, was also demonstrated.

The third and final phase of the Bauhaus is indicated by the time when the school had to leave its premises. This was the result of the revoking of funds from the nationalist government. The Bauhaus transferred to Dessau. When this move occurred, the school made a different direction this time prioritizing the demands of the industry.

The Bauhaus Dessau building itself, with its highly balanced assembly, was an important training point for the school from crafts towards industrial functionalism. The masters were now referred to as professors. By this period Gropius now believed that in order to survive, the Bauhaus needed to adopt an industrial approach to design.  

It was believed that the application of functionalism was to cater for a better society, and with this thought the Bauhaus designs were made for industrial production and a machine aesthetic was consciously adopted.

Marcel Breuer chairs; on the left, Latenstuhl made in the furniture workshop in Weimar, 1922-1924. 

Among the workshops in the Bauhaus, the cabinetmaking workshop was one of the most popular. Under the course of Marcel Breuer the essence of furniture was specialized and frequently conservative forms such as chairs were dematerialized. His theories were that by time objects such as chairs would become archaic, and inspired by the tubes of his bicycle, he experimented with metal furniture, creating lightweight, mass-producible metal chairs. Some of these chairs were deployed in the theater of the Dessau building.

The metal workshop was another popular space and was also one of the most successful in developing design prototypes for mass production. In this studio, designers such as Marianne Brandt, Wilhelm Wagenfeld, and Christian Dell created stunning, modern items such as lighting fixtures and tableware, and sometimes these objects were used in the Bauhaus campus itself.

Marianne Brandt, tea infuser and stainer; Brandt, interrelated a quantity of geometric forms such as the hemisphere and the circle. her design shows the forms relationship in space. the form of the teapot and the materials used serve as the only decorative elements and this reflects the emphasis upon simplicity of the Bauhaus.  

Kubus stacking containers made by Wilhelm Wagenfeld, the products are made of industrial glass which is heat-resistant. these are designed for a maximum use of storage and flexibility. 

In 1928, Hannes Meyer, a Swiss architect, agreed to take the position of director of the Bauhaus instead of Gropius. He held the directorship till July 1930. He believed that functionality and cost had to govern form. In this manner, the products would be both practical and affordable for the working-class customers. Mayer also tried to introduce lectures relating to economics, psychology, sociology and Marxism. Furthermore, he closed the theatre workshops and reorganized the other workshops. Under his domain, the school’s approach to design became more scientific.

When Mies van der Rohe took over the directorship, he closed the school, and when he re-opened it, the study of architecture was given more importance. This change transformed the Bauhaus into a school of architecture. And even though the applied art workshops were still in use, the products assembled could only be industrially manufactured.

Throughout the short existence of the Bauhaus, it triggered a revolution in art education, whose influences are still felt today. According to Wolf von Eckardt, the Bauhaus ‘created the patterns and set the standards of present-day industrial design; it helped to invent modern architecture; it altered the look of everything…’

Among the aims that the school had, the first one was to rescue all the arts from the situation of isolation in which each where found. Artists were to be taught and trained to work cooperative projects in which all their different abilities would be merged. Furthermore, the craft’s status was to be promoted and a contact with the leaders of the crafts and industries of the country was to be formed. In fact this was a case of economical survival.

On 19^th July 1993 a final vote was taken to dissolve the Bauhaus, and this formally marked the end of this institution.

The functionalist approach to design founded at the Bauhaus had a fundamental impression on following industrial design training and provided the philosophical foundation from which the Modern Movement progressed. The Bauhaus had also an intense impact in the manner in which design was taught.

Throughout the confusion that brought with it World War II, many of the important figures of the Bauhaus immigrated to the United States. Their work and teaching methods influenced generations upon generations of architects and designers to be. Marcel Breuer and Joseph Albers taught at Yale, Walter Gropius went to Harvard, and Moholy-Nagy established the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937.

Bibliography: 

Taschen. Design of the 20th Century

Frank Whiford. Bauhaus 

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, 2000. The Bauhaus, 1919-1933. [Online] Available at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm [Accessed at 20th November 2013]

De Stijl

‘Society is changing and so she pleads for a new robe, for her old one is worn through; patching it up will no longer do… that new robe is the new style that must be created…’ - Bart van der Leck.

In 1917, which was the period after World War 1, architects and designers were discovering new methods and ideas relating to design. A group amongst these, that was inspired from the industrial era, was created by Dutch artists whose ideas and designs were published in a publication which was devoted to modern neo-Plasticism, was called De Stijl and eventually formed the De Stijl movement.

According to H.P Berlage every piece of furniture is a little architectural structure. The difference between applied arts, architecture and urban planning, for him, is blurred. He was convinced that social and spiritual progress will engender an art that suits modern life perfectly. That art will have style ‘Stijl’.

Those who relate to this movement asked the question as to what is De Stijl from the very beginning. Three categories of answers were given. Some said that De Stijl was a magazine; others said that it was an art movement. Lastly there were those who said that De Stijl was an idea, a worldview and an approach to life. According to Van Doesburg’s presentation, De Stijl began as an idea, out of the idea a movement formed; the movement expressed itself in the form of a journal.

The story of how De Stijl came to be, is about the production of an artistic and cultural phenomenon out of basic human interactions. Very often, rather than collaboration, disagreement seems to be the dominant theme. De Stijl is associated with instantly recognized objects such as the radical and abstract painting of Piet Mondrian, who was a great influence on the movement. Even some of the early work belonging to Frank Lloyd Wright was influential on their notions about form.

Their philosophy was all about functionalism, and the concept behind this style was to create art that diminishes formality with the use of strictly primary colours and non-colours (black and white), together with the use of straight lines. The intention behind this concept was to express new artistic ideals or both order and harmony by reducing images to the absolute essentials.

'Self-portrait' by Theo Van Doesberg

De Stijl was a reflection of the emerging trend of the 20^th century that was; the joining of art and design worlds that were separated during Renaissance. The leader of this movement was Theo van Doesburg who was a Dutch painter and designer, whose early work is compared to Vincent Van Gogh’s.

'Counter composition'- Theo van Doesburg

It was his devotion to pure, abstract art that led him to found De Stijl. Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszar and Gerrit Rietveld followed his footsteps that eventually influenced following movements in art and design.

Theo Van Doesburg, together with Cor van Eesteren, exploded the conventional box like structure of a building, which is viewed as interpreting spaces unfolding in time. Theo van Doesburg, was also enchanted by Kandinsky’s abstract art, and he was more influenced when he met Mondrian and establishes De Stijl as an instrument of propaganda. By 1924, De Stijl dominated art everywhere.

Art reproduction Oil Painting- 'Black and Violet'- Kandinsky

'Line over form'- Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrain, embarked on a quest of a truly abstract form of painting. This kind of painting did not simply combine lines and colours in a decorative way, but it made tangible the ‘spirit of the coming age’. Through experimentation he came to the conclusion that pure, intense, inner colours and the strong, simple, manifestation of the line could help release such an abstract form of art. His work is demonstrated in several of De Stijl designs.

One of those who were inspired by Mondrian’s work was Vilmos Huszár, who is one of the most loyal artists of De Stijl. When, in 1916, he saw Mondrian’s work, he became devoted to it, and he began mixing painting, design and the surrounding environment.

‘What is a hammer to an artist? Its function: hammering. What is a saw to an artist? Its function: sawing. The painter has observed hammering as a vertical movement, sawing as horizontal. These two simultaneous movements are the visual movements on which he builds the entire composition… the rectangular visual space is full of movement, the sum of the vertical hammer movements and the countervailing saw movements…’

'Composition (Hammer and Saw)'

Furthermore, Gerrit Rietveld made a major contribution to this movement. This occurred when he took the armchair and reconfigured it as a series of self- supporting planks known as the Red/Blue chair that was done in 1918. Its design encapsulates the philosophy of the De Stijl movement. This chair not only affected not only furniture design, but the history of architecture itself. Rietveld's "Red and Blue" chair is now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Paul Overy in his book called ‘De Stijl’ said; ‘One of the functions of Rietveld's chairs, with their hard seats and backs, is to focus our senses, to make us alert and aware. Rietveld was not interested in conventional ideas of comfort (the 19th century armchair that relaxes you so much that you spill your coffee or fall asleep over your book). He wished to keep the sitter physically and mentally "toned up."

"I am constantly concerned," Rietveld said, "with this extraordinary idea of the awakening of the consciousness." That is why he came to design the most influential chair of the 20th century--and even he was surprised at the big effect his Red and Blue chair had.

The stability that the black verticals and horizontals give a bright motion with the use of the bright yellow squares and rectangles, which at the same time makes the audience more aware of the chair’s structure. Furthermore, the glossiness of the black finishes adds liveliness to the chair and a sense of complexity. Mondrian and the artists of the De Stijl movement worked on the principle that all art has to have "dynamic equilibrium." 

This piece was exhibited in the Bauhaus in 1923 and was influential upon Marcel Breuer who designed later a tubular metal B3 Wassily chair in 1925-27.

Rietveld’s chair is the result of the practical work of art. Its sculptural form was assembled by the concepts behind this style; verticals, horizontals and primary colours.

The Zigzag chair designed in 1932-34 was influential upon other chairs such as the Panton chair whose form is round and made of plastic.

'Panton Chair'

'Zigzag chair'

In addition, Gerrit Rietveld’s Schroeder House is the most complete realization of the De Stijl’s beauty. It was commissioned by Mrs Truus Schröder-Schräder and the building is now a museum. The house has a fundamental attitude to design and together with the use of space, it is an icon of the Modern Movement in architecture. The Schröder House was built on the edge of the city of Utrecht, at the end of a 19th-century row of houses. There is a few drawing of the house and a scale model that illustrate that the design behind it grew from a fairly close block to an open transparent composition of uniformly coordinated spaces made out of independent planes.

The house has two floors, and these develop about a spiral staircase in the centre. The main structure comprises of concrete blocks and steel contours. Furthermore, the house is painted in basic colours and shades of grey that are a reflection to Mondrian's paintings.

Not only the building structure itself, but also its furnishings and decoration were designed by Reitveld. The cube was the underlying form for the architecture of the house. Together with openness, lightness and pillars the use of new material was also incorporated. Differing from a traditional Dutch house, Rietveld’s house is composed of rooms in a flexible way. Rooms are not arranged in a hierarchical manner. Rietveld transformed a big room to a smaller one with the use of partitions. The upper floor is one open space and it can be divided into three bedrooms and a sitting room with the use of sliding panels. However, for Rietveld to be able to obtain a building permit, on the ground floor he was forced to meet the Dutch regulations.

The strong lines that where incorporated in the interior produced dynamism, and these were combined with a sense of lightness that was created through the removal of ornaments. The removal of unnecessary materials approach, was very influential upon the development of the Modern Movement as well as the use of geometric formalism.

In each case, every person involved had a common goal in the discovery of the basic principles of their respective practices and a common aspiration that they might combine together to forge a new style appropriate for the modern age. From the 1930s onwards, De Stijl was recognized internationally as the most important contribution to modern culture made by the Netherlands.

Bibliography: 

Hans Janssen and Michael White, 2011. The Story of De Stijl Mondrian to Van Doesburg. 

Art, Design and Visual thinking, 1995. De Stijl. [Online] Available at:  http://char.txa.cornell.edu/art/decart/destijl/decstijl.htm [Accessed at 10th November 2013]

Styleture. What is De Stijl?. [Online] Available at:  http://www.styleture.com/2011/06/14/de-stijl/ [Accessed at 9th November 2013]

Anthony C. Romeo. Home; Aesthetic Realism Foundation. Gerrit Rietveld's Red and Blue Chair. [blog]. Available at:  http://www.terraingallery.org/Anthony-Romeo-Chair.html [Accessed at 9th November 2013]

UNESCO, 1992. Rietveld Schröderhuis. [Online] Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/965 [Accessed at 10th November 2013]