The Practice Of The British Arts And Crafts Movement During The19^th Century

The British Arts and Crafts Movement during the19th century was an international design revolution, originated as the consequence of this specific period in the middle-nineteenth century, Britain. The success of the Great Exhibition, which was held in the Crystal Palace, set the beginning of the Arts and Crafts firmly. It was a rebellion against industrialization and mass production by machines, for the Industrial Revolution did separate humans from their own belief, creativity and individualism. As a matter of fact, the movement was instigated by William Morris, who was a designer, artist, writer, and more essentially, a socialist. The movement advocated truth to materials and traditional craftsmanship using simple forms and often medieval, romantic or folk styles of decoration. Generally speaking, the Arts and Crafts movement experienced mainly three historical periods represented by John Ruskin, William Morris and C. R. Ashbee, and then it flourished between1880to1920at home and abroad.Under the background of globalization which was popular by the promote of the westerners in the late20th century, the cultural convergence is already no longer unfamiliar to all. Not only the developed countries in Europe and America, but also the relatively backward areas in Asia and Africa, none of us are able to survive under the trend of globalization. It’s the same with Chinese traditional culture nowadays and even the British national handicrafts a century ago. Revolution is the best antidote to the troubles, so as the Arts and Crafts Movement to the world. Due to the direct response in practice, the practice thing can be divided into two main parts:one is the ways of practicing; and the other is the characteristics of practicing. By identifying the differences that different ways of practicing showed in movement, highlighted that under the continuity of identity, there still existed diversity, and it was the symbiosis of the above two which hid in the practice of the Arts and Crafts Movement that made the British traditional folk crafts a strong vitality.I separate the ways of the Practice of the British Arts and Crafts Movement during the19th century into three types, namely the individual practice, the communities’practice and the corporations’practice. Among them, individual practice was the basic method of practicing when the Arts and Crafts Movement was just provoked, and then till1870th, a large scale of designers who had a common goal came along to set up societies and guilds to put the individual practice into the communities’. This did not only gurantee the effectiveness but also broaden the influence of the British Arts and Crafts Movement. What’s more, the reason why it didn’t flourish exuberantly for the arts and crafts enterprise until the last10years of the19th century was that the corporations were the updated one from the communities’practice, a brand new economic entity. According to the cases of practicing, I summarize a basic pattern of the movement:individual practice is the base, communities’practice is the stage, and corporations’practice is the insurance.On the basis of the relationships among the three methods, I sum up two characteristics of the movement:Personal practice, groups’practice and corporations’ practice. From the perspective of development, I mainly study on the partnership between Industrial Revolution and the practice, as well as the interact with the public. And by summarizing the individual practice and the communities’practice which is related to the stuff, I figure out that the time sequence in practice can be concluded into three phases:opposition, neutrality and inclusion; From the perspective of analyzing the cases, the differences of practice are mainly manifested in three aspects, and they are regional differences in practice, gender differences in practice and ideal continuity respectively. According to the basic methods, differences in personal and communities’practice form the regional differences part. Differences in personal practice was mainly showed in two kinds of items:first, influenced by different regions and traditions, different craftsmen practiced in different ways; second, under different environments and circumstances, even the same person might create designs which also existed regional differences. So did the communities’. Three Government schools of Design which established by the same goal despite separated in different cities (London, Birmingham, and Glasgow) appeared diversity in the content of the practice. The gender differences in practice are mainly embodied in the divisions of labor between men and women, and in the effects and roles as well; third, diversity in ideal continuity of the Arts and Crafts Movement in19th Century Britain is a very prominent aspect.The British Arts and Crafts Movement lay a milestone to the world civilization. It was a cultural renaissance and rose a move of cultural revolution in the whole late of the19th century in Britain. In this paper, I choose the perspective of practice, and by collecting and looking up the cases lying in the British national and traditional handicrafts, clarify the relationships and individual acts of the three methods, and then emphasize the truth that behind the sequence, there still exists differences in traditional handicraft making through the comparison studies. As a result, differences become the core strength for national culture to move on.All I expect in this paper is to find a way to provide a reference for Chinese national handicrafts under the wave of the Industrial Revolution and the Globalization.