Architecture and Decorative Arts
The decisive effects of industrialization were impossible to ignore, and
although many artists embraced this manifestation of “modern life”
or at least explored its effects, other artists decried the impact of ram-
pant industrialism. The latter response came from the Arts and Crafts
movement in England. This movement, which developed during the
last decades of the 19th century, was shaped by the ideas of John
Ruskin, the critic who skewered Whistler’s Nocturne(FIG. 31-13), and
the artist William Morris. Both men shared a distrust of machines
and industrial capitalism, which they believed alienated workers from
their own nature. Accordingly, they advocated an art “made by the
people for the people as a joy for the maker and the user.”^18 This con-
demnation of capitalism and support for manual laborers were com-
patible with socialism, and many artists in the Arts and Crafts move-
ment, especially in England, considered themselves socialists and
participated in the labor movement.
This democratic, or at least populist, attitude carried over to the
art they produced as well. Members of the Arts and Crafts move-
ment dedicated themselves to producing functional objects with
high aesthetic value for a wide public. The style they advocated was
based on natural, rather than artificial, forms and often consisted of
repeated designs of floral or geometric patterns. For Ruskin, Morris,
and others in the Arts and Crafts movement, high-quality artisan-
ship and honest labor were crucial.
WILLIAM MORRISIn order to promote these ideals,William
Morris(1834–1896) formed a decorating firm dedicated to Arts and
Crafts principles: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company, Fine Arts
Workmen in Painting, Carving, Furniture, and Metals. His company
did a flourishing business producing wallpaper, textiles, tiles, furni-
ture, books, rugs, stained glass, and pottery. In 1867, Morris received
the commission to decorate the Green Dining Room (FIG. 31-34) at
London’s South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria & Albert Mu-
seum), the center of public art education and home of decorative art
collections. The range of room features—windows, lights, and wain-
scoting(paneling on the lower part of interior walls)—that Morris
decorated to create this unified, beautiful, and functional environ-
ment is all-encompassing. Nothing escaped his eye. Morris’s design
for this room also reveals the penchant of Arts and Crafts designers for
intricate patterning.CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH Numerous Arts and
Crafts societies in America, England, and Germany carried on this
ideal of artisanship. In Scotland,Charles Rennie Mackintosh
(1868–1929) designed a number of tearooms, including the Ladies
Luncheon Room (FIG. 31-35) located in the Ingram Street Tea Room
in Glasgow. The room decor is consistent with Morris’s vision of a
functional, exquisitely designed art. The chairs, stained-glass win-
dows, and large panels of colored gesso with twine, glass beads, thread,
mother-of-pearl, and tin leaf (made by Margaret Macdonald
Mackintosh[1864–1933], an artist-designer and Mackintosh’s wife,
who collaborated with him on many projects) are all pristinely geo-
metric and rhythmical in design.ART NOUVEAUAn important international architectural and
design movement that developed out of the ideas the Arts and Crafts
movement promoted was Art Nouveau (New Art), which took its
name from a shop in Paris called L’Art Nouveau. Known by that
name in France, Belgium, Holland, England, and the United States,
the style had other names elsewhere:Jugendstilin Austria and Ger-
many (after the magazine Der Jugend,“youth”),Modernismoin
Spain, and Florealein Italy. Proponents of this movement tried to31-34William
Morris,Green Dining
Room, South Kensington
Museum (now Victoria &
Albert Museum), London,
England, 1867.
William Morris was a
founder of the Arts and
Crafts movement. His
Green Dining Room
exemplifies the group’s
dedication to creating
intricately patterned yet
unified and functional
environments.
846 Chapter 31 EUROPE AND AMERICA, 1870 TO 1900