Was William Morris seeing into the future?

Image source: https://julia-writes.com/2021/06/07/the-century-guild-at-william-morris-gallery/

«Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.» This phrase by William Morris perhaps contains the whole of this English designer’s philosophy. But was Morris simply a designer? The answer is that no, he was not. His interests were not limited to designing furniture, wallpapers and other objects but also expanded to developing extensive theoretical work. Against the norms of the Victorian era, Morris significantly differentiated himself, politically and ideologically, from the existing turn to industrial development.  

From the Oxford movement to J. Ruskin

W. Morris was born in Walthamstow of east London in 1834, that is, in the dawn of the Victorian era. As a member of an affluent family, the prospects of his life were good from the beginning. Having spent almost all of his childhood in Woodford Hall of Essex he had the opportunity to wander around in the countryside, passing his time surrounded by nature, near churches of the English countryside. Moreover, his interest in poetry and literature grew whilst studying the work of the famous writer Walter Scott. Perhaps this study played a great part in forming his character and motivated his love for historical Romanticism and reminiscing of the older times. His aversion towards the developing industrial activity actually first manifested in his teenage years when, in 1851, he denied visiting the London Great Exhibition, staying true to his opinion that handcrafting products should be the main priority of the creative and artistic field.

A few years later he begins studying at Oxford University. There, he meets the famous-to-be painter Burne-Jones, with whom he will develop a long lasting friendship. Together they will join The Brotherhood, a group that recounted tales of Chivalry, Romanticism and self-sacrifice almost daily, while they were both influenced by the Oxford movement, which prioritised the revival of Catholicism within the circles of the Anglican Church. However, at this point something seems to slightly change in Morris’ thought, owing to his encounter with texts by contemporary reformers, and mainly with the work of John Ruskin. 

Image source: https://arquitecturaviva.com/articles/seven-lamps

Ruskin’s extremely anti-modernist theoretical approach influenced Morris who moved on from the dreamy aesthetic medievalism. Now, he was one of the most fanatical anti-Victorians. It was not random that after completing his studies, in 1856, he started working for the architectural office of G.E. Street, a revivalist of gothic elements in Victorian architecture. Along with Street and Burne-Jones, they visited Belgium and areas of northern France. At this time, Morris will encounter the work of Hans Memling and Jan and Hubert Van Eyck, while also getting to know gothic architecture better.. 

Once he returns, he is persuaded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti to participate in the wall-decorating murals for Oxford Union with scenes from the myth of Arthur. The only surviving part that is attributed to Morris is La Belle Iseult (1858). 

Detail from La Belle Iseult in Oxford Union | Image source: https://www.culturewhisper.com/r/visual_arts/preview/1993

From this moment on, architecture will be a thing of the past for William Morris who will focus instead on painting and object design. 

Quality over quantity 

Combining anti-modernism with the theory developed by K. Marx, Morris begins to build his own theoretical approach and gradually move away from the elitism of his “master”, J. Ruskin. For Morris, an important factor of the worker’s labour was the sense of joy and satisfaction that could be achieved through the cooperation of all fields. This viewpoint also distinguished him from other political groups of his time, like the Fabians, since he was critical of the approach of the bureaucratic socialist state, which at that time, accoriding to him, didn’t factor in the humanist aspect of contemporary society. 

It’s the same viewpoint that he tried to imbue his artistic practice with. At the core of Morris’ ideology and approach was the focus on the quality of the produced objects, one that, according to him, industrial objects lacked. In 1894 he wrote : «Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is the hatred of modern civilization». So, the beauty, quality and utility of each object he produced were the principles that led him to founding Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (or "Fine Art Workmen in Painting, Carving, Furniture and the Metals") (1861-1875), a company that focused on crafting handmade house objects. With Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Charles Faulkner, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, P. P. Marshall and Philip Webb they assumed the design of objects of metalwork, stained glass, carpets, fabric prints (chintzes) as well as the famous wallpapers with winding plant patterns. 

 ‘Image source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ET3dg0uXgAAL8lx?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

The persistence of Morris and his partners led to the birth of the Arts and Crafts movement in 1860, influencing even more artists, theorists and movements, like Vegetarianism. However, even though he believed in the principles of a socialist society and was averse to the industrial consumption of cheap products, the majority of his customers were affluent metropolitans. The question that naturally arises is how could a passionate rival of the Industrial Revolution and its plights, on an artistic and professional level, address the owners of the “capital”.

The answer lies in the very process of producing these items. Obviously, for example, handmade and intricately decorated fabrics would be more expensive than those of mass production, and therefore not at all accessible to everyone. Thus, as promising -even environmentally sound one could say- as the idea of prioritising quality, beauty and utility in any object of everyday use sounded, its application doesn’t seem to have been very easy.

However, Morris's main desire was to make a difference in people's lives, offering them the opportunity to buy fewer items, which would instead be characterized by their quality and timelessness. This may also be related to his concern about the deterioration of the environment by widespread industrial activity, a deterioration that is more apparent today than ever before. Perhaps he was more in favour of ecology and the principles of sustainability, at least in the way these concepts are understood today.

Can a red, medieval-type house be considered innovative?

In 1859, Morris commissioned Phillip Webb to build a house in Bexleyheath, south-east London. The building would not only function as a home for him and his wife but would also be a place to meet and work with all of his associates and friends. Of course, since the house was a product of the English designer's circle, it could not fail to follow the standards of the medieval style, with elements of Romanticism in its interior decoration. The house described by D. G. Rossetti as "… more a poem than a house…", is quite imposing on the outside with gabled roofs, while on the inside it is almost entirely covered with wall decoration, curated by himself, Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Stained glass in Red House in Bexleyheath (1859-1860) | Image source: https://www.tiovivocreativo.com/blog/arquitectura/william-morris-y-el-arts-and-crafts/

The whole experience of the house’s decoration is completed by the heavy furniture, intensifying the idea of ​​the Cult of Domesticity, according to which the house is the place of enjoyment and rest from the chaos of the cities.

The Red House, however, was not just a residential area that included a workshop. It was a symbol of the way Morris and the other members of the Arts and Crafts movement worked. It aimed at the development of a guild of sorts, where all the artistic branches would cooperate with the aim of producing finished quality objects of all kinds. It was a "guild" in a sort of medieval sense. 

But how did William Morris and Arts and Crafts influence, and perhaps continue to influence, the field of architecture and design aesthetically and theoretically?

From G. Britain, to Germany, to today

The aversion to industrial development did not remain only in Great Britain, but came to characterise the artistic expression of the western world. Mainly developing industrial centers, such as the United States and Germany, began to demonstrate, at first modestly and later vigorously, their opposition to mass-produced products. However, the confrontation and the expression of this polarization are quite different. A typical example of this differentiation is the turn the Arts and Crafts movement took in the United States, where the subjective ambivalence of the movement's leaders - led by Charles Eliot Norton - stood in the way of a clear stance on the theoretical and practical problems posed by their British counterparts. Thus, based on the principles of the British side of the movement, communities began to develop, among them the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. Founded by C. E. Norton himself, the community stated that its purpose was to create "costly but precious products, with something of human life in them", an idea we first encounter in the UK.

A crossroads for the expression of the American version of the movement was the work of Gustav Stickley. Versatile, like Morris, Stickley deals with all branches of the craft, while his furniture - rigid and heavy but without losing its beauty and practicality - resembles its British counterparts, with the exception of a complete absence of decoration.

‘’Drop-arm Morris chair’’ (c. 1905-1912) | Image source: https://www.ragoarts.com/auctions/2020/09/early-20th-century-design/300

Corresponding viewpoints on the need to liberalize the arts and artistic creation from the standardization of industrial production also appear in Germany. At least that was the position of Van de Velde, one of the two principal representatives of the Deutscher Werkbund. However, with the passage of time and the collaboration of Peter Behrens -founding member of the guild- with AEG, the distance from industrial design is reduced, without losing the collectivization of the arts, with the slogan «Vom Sofakissen zum Städtebau» by the German guild being dominant. After all, its subsequent development, this time with Walter Gropius as its central figure, extended the unity of all artists under one roof. The Bauhaus school. This time, however, the objects are produced by the school workshops, in larger quantities but not in bulk, focusing on the development and use of modern technology, a practice diametrically opposed to the proclamations of the British Arts and Crafts.

Bauhaus armchair (Peter Keler, c. 1920) | Image source: https://www.vntg.com/139899/bauhaus-armchair-by-peter-keler-1920s/

The aim of the artists, now, is the simplicity and practicality of the products and the departure from aesthetics, handicraft work and the use of more natural materials, posed by Morris and his collaborators. The reason for this departure, however, lies in the particular general socio-political conditions of the time, and in the change that seemed to have taken place in society - and therefore in the artistic field - which was on the verge of two catastrophic wars and the danger of many civil wars.

Wassily chair | Image source: https://www.1stdibs.com/en-gb/buy/original-wassily-chair/

After all, can Morris's views and obsession with the need for artistic guilds capable of creating quality and timeless objects offer a solution to our problems today? With the dominance of all kinds of mass-produced products -which are indeed accessible to all but do not meet the quality standards of the consumer- the existence of smaller, local crafts have disappeared. The absence of these small industries, which in a way follow the pattern of the guild (design, manufacture, production and sale of products), is natural to deprive the market of a significant presence. Medium-priced items, and therefore accessible to all, which will not be deprived of quality or elegance, if compared to those of high-end or "fast fashion" companies, are the solution we seek for a more favourable future in the field of design. As it turned out, this solution had been found for a while with the proposals of Bauhaus, but then it was lost. It is time, then, to return to the direct relationship that the quality of the products produced should have with their selling price so that they are affordable for everyone.

Sources/ Further reading

Introducing William Morris. Από: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/introducing-william-morris.

William Morris textiles. Από: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/willam-morris-textiles.

L. Fiederer. AD Classics: Red House / William Morris and Philip Webb. From: https://www.archdaily.com/873077/ad-classics-red-house-arts-crafts-william-morris-philip-webb.

Arts and Crafts Movement. From: https://exhibitions.lib.umd.edu/williammorris/morris-influence/arts-and-crafts-movement.

S. Sporn (2021). Was William Morris the Forefather of Grandmillennial Style? These Morris & Co. Patterns Make the Case. From: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/160-years-of-morris-and-co-in-8-fabrics-wallpapers-and-tapestries.

Craftsman Farms in the Stickley Era. From: https://www.stickleymuseum.org/history/.

William Morris: Useful Beauty in the Home | HENI Talks. From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjdCOUGrNK8&ab_channel=HENITalks.

A. Watson (2019). The first eco-warrior of design. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190909-the-first-eco-warrior-of-design.

B. Colomina, & M. Wigley. Are we human?: notes on an archaeology of design. (Lars Müller Publishers).

T.J.J. Lears, No place of grace: antimodernism and the transformation of American culture, 1880-1920, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981).

U. Conrads (ed.), Programs and Manifestoes on 20th Century Architecture. (London: Lund Humphries Publishers Limited, 1970).

Podcast για τον W. Morris στο: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b9w0vq