The Arts and Crafts Movement

by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson

Such a society was in due time formed, and, under the name of the 'Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society,' initiated the wider movement which, from itself as source, has spread all the world over, and created a new interest. The arts and crafts have been born again, and, in a new sense, occupy the attention of mankind.

The first exhibition was held in the New Gallery, in London, in the autumn of 1888. It is not necessary to dwell on the exhibits which stand enumerated in the catalogue now before me. It is sufficient to say that whereas each exhibit, standing alone, might have been seen without any sense of a new 'movement' being on foot, the accumulation, under one roof and idea, of so many different and differently conceived things of beauty, made a marked impression on the public imagination, & unmistakably heralded the advent of a new force into society, at once creative and classificatory. Old things, long since done, were to be put into new relations, & upon a higher plane, and all new work was to be conceived of as convergent upon one end, the dignity and sweetness of life, and the workman—artist or craftsman—was to derive therefrom his measure of happiness & delight. And that work, which for the world had lost all association with human initiative & solicitude, was to be made to resume that intimate relation, and the workman himself to be recalled into the assembly of those who are consciously striving to the acknowledged end. The workmen contributing to the creation of a work were to be thenceforward named its author, and to have their names inscribed upon the great roll of the world's ever visible record.

Such appeared to be the new movement of which the first exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society was the first overt act.

Besides the enumeration and description of exhibits, the catalogue contained a preface by the President, Walter Crane; a notice of lectures to be given in connexion with the exhibition; and a number of 'Notes' upon various arts & crafts written by men who, as stated in the preface, were associated with the subjects of which they treated, not in the literary sense only, but as actual designers and workmen.

The object of the lectures was stated to be twofold: (1) To set out the aims of the Society; and (2) by demonstration & otherwise, to direct attention to the processes employed in the arts and crafts, and so to lay a foundation for a just appreciation, both of the processes themselves, and of their importance as methods of expression in design.

And here I may intercalate an extract from a book which appeared at that time, as it throws a light upon, indeed constituted, one of the main impulses to which was due the inception of the lectures. I refer to 'Scientific Religion, or Higher Possibilities of Life and Practice through the Operation of Natural Causes,' by Laurence Oliphant; and the passage to which I ask your attention is the following:

'He can no longer be esteemed an excellent workman who can only work excellently! for his work, to prove that it is living, must be generative, and it will not be generative unless the workman has his mind trained to a clear conception of his own methods and their connexion with the laws of Nature: and unless he can impart that understanding by word of mouth: unless, in fine, the sum of his experience, while he is constantly increasing it, is as constantly forced by him into mental shape'—or, as I might add, into imaginative shape and association.

When I read this I seemed to see all crafts and manufactures and commerce crystal clear and capable of statement, so that, even as they stood outlined and embodied to the corporeal eye, so they should shine in all their processes and relations clear as in sunlight to the eye of intelligence: and it was in such wise that when the time came I proposed to the Committee of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society that Lectures should form a part of the purpose of the Society, and should accompany and be delivered in the building of the Exhibition (1) to convert the implicit mental processes involved in the exercise of a craft into explicit articulate utterance capable of making such mental processes intelligible at once to the worker himself and to the spectator interested to know, and (2) to widen the horizons of the workers and to set their work in due relation to the other crafts and processes with which it was associated, and to the forces of Nature upon which they and it depended.

Lectures, as announced in the Catalogue, were given in connexion with the first exhibition by William Morris on Tapestry, by George Simmonds on Modelling and Sculpture, by Emery Walker on Letterpress Printing, by myself on Bookbinding, and by Walter Crane on Design.

Perhaps, in view of the results which have flowed from it, and at this distance of time, I may for a moment dwell particularly on the lecture on Letterpress Printing. It was at my urgent request that Mr. Walker overcame his reluctance to speak in public, and I therefore claim for myself the honour of being the real author of The Kelmscott Press! for it was in consequence of this lecture given by Mr. Emery Walker at my request, and the lantern slides of beautiful old founts of type and MS. by which it was illustrated, that William Morris was induced to turn again his attention to printing, and this time, as a printer, to produce, in friendly collaboration with Mr. Walker, that splendid series of printed books which has inspired printing with a new life, and enriched the libraries of the world with books as nobly conceived and executed as any that distinguish the great age of Printing itself.