A Postindustrial Prelude to Postcolonialism: John Ruskin, William Morris, and Gandhism

1996 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 466-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Brantlinger
Keyword(s):  
John Ruskin ◽  
William Morris

The Cognitive Process of Parable: John Ruskin, William Morris and the Oriental Lure of the Forbidden

2018 ◽  
pp. 65-102
Author(s):  
Eleonora Sasso
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Decorative Arts ◽  
John Ruskin ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Material Life ◽  
Space Analysis ◽  
World Theory ◽  
Narrative Poems ◽  
Earthly Paradise

This chapter examines the pervasive influence of Arabian marvel tales on Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River and Sesame and Lilies (1865), as well as on Morris’s The Earthly Paradise. More similarly to Marx’s ideological Orientalism, Ruskin and Morris sympathise with people’s misery, with their material life and the Arab townsfolk, and thereby with the criminal underworld. Ruskin’s ideological Orientalism is particularly evident in his lectures and autobiography whose rhetorical language may be analysed through possible world theory, Fauconnier’s mental space analysis and Oatley and Johnson-Laird’s cognitive theory of emotions (1987). By projecting such Oriental conceptual metaphors as East is poverty and East is corruption, Ruskin aims at sensitising his readers to the perils of imperialism. Morris’s fascination with the East is first and foremost connected with the Byzantine decorative arts and carpet-making. As founder of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), he promoted a campaign against the restoration of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, the paramount example of Arab influence on Venetian architecture. His connection with the East can be better understood, however, by investigating the Oriental love scenarios in The Earthly Paradise, whose narrative poems seem to restructure the Arabian tales of the ‘Forbidden Chamber’ cycle.

William Morris and the Aesthetics of Manly Labour

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Livesey
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Walter Pater ◽  
John Ruskin ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Aesthetic Development ◽  
Artistic Production ◽  
Radical Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

This chapter traces this complex history of aestheticism, socialist aesthetics, and early modernism through a study of the development of William Morris's works in the later nineteenth century. Placing Morris's aesthetic development in the context of the writings of John Ruskin and Walter Pater, the discussion explore Morris's resistance to an emerging aesthetic that emphasized individual taste and consumption, rather than communal production. In his socialist essays, Signs of Change (1888) Morris developed an aesthetic continuum that enabled him to collapse the distinction between art and bodily labour and imagine a future of communal artistic production after the revolution. Both the radical nature of Morris's aesthetic and its preoccupation with productive masculinity are emphasized by contrasting his work to Wilde's essay ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’ (1891).

The Byzantine Revival in Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 270-282
Author(s):  
J. B. Bullen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
John Ruskin ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Gothic Revival ◽  
Byzantine Architecture ◽  
Byzantine Revival

The nineteenth-century interest in Byzantium was essentially a romantic revival following the Gothic revival, triggered by the imagination of Ludwig I of Bavaria and his passion for the Byzantine architecture of Italy. His acquisitional taste was taken up by his brother-in-law, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, in socio-political terms, and by Ludwig II on aesthetic terms. French interest in Byzantium was archaeological, connected to what was called Byzantine or Romanesque building in southwest France. Britain’s contribution was highly individualistic, depending on a small number of strong-minded characters who were willing to challenge the prevailing Gothic orthodoxies. Strengthened first by John Ruskin and then by William Morris, it shifted attention away from the “primitive” simplicity of Byzantine work to its simple majesty.

Making It New: Visual Modernism and the “Myth of the North” in Interwar England

1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Saler
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Social Utility ◽  
John Ruskin ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Van Gogh ◽  
The North ◽  
The World

We often associate visual modernism with cosmopolitan cities on the Continent, with pride of place going to Paris, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, and Munich. English visual modernism has been studied less frequently—the very phrase “English modernism” sounds like a contradiction in terms—but it too is usually linked to the cosmopolitan center of London, as well as to the notorious postimpressionist exhibitions staged there by Roger Fry in 1910 and 1912. Fry coined the term “postimpressionism” to embrace the disparate styles of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, and others that he introduced to a bewildered and skeptical public. Together with his Bloomsbury colleague Clive Bell, Fry defined the new art in formalist terms, arguing that works of visual art do not represent the world or depict a narrative but, rather, consist of “significant forms” that elicit “aesthetic emotions” from sensitive viewers. The two men deliberately sought to redefine art away from the moral and utilitarian aesthetic promoted by Victorian critics such as John Ruskin and William Morris. Fry and Bell intended to establish art as self-sufficient, independent from social utility or moral concerns. Fry at times expressed ambivalence about this formalist enterprise, but Bell had fewer hesitations in defining modern art as absolutely autonomous: as he stated inArt(1914), “To appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing from life, no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions.

scholarly journals The Designer’s Eye: Ancient Spanish Ballads, Poetry, and the Rise of Decorative Design

2009 ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Nicholas Frankel
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Early Years ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
John Ruskin ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Active Constituent ◽  
Perceptual Structure ◽  
Kelmscott Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
Decorative Design

AbstractIn 1841 John Murray published a sumptuously ornamented edition of John Gibson Lockhart’sAncient Spanish Ballads.Murray’s new edition, printed using the very latest bookmaking technologies and pitched at a readership newly accustomed to paying exorbitant prices for book ornaments and illustrations, was radically different from the first edition of Lockhart’s ballads, which had appeared without accompanying ornament in 1823. Illustrated by the leading illustrators of the day and decorated throughout in multiple colors by the architect Owen Jones (who would go on to become famous as a Superintendent of the Great Exhibition and the author ofThe Grammar of Ornament), Murray’s edition represents a stunning departure in Victorian printing and a highpoint in mid-Victorian design generally. At the same time, it crystallizes a debate about the nature and application of artistic design that was beginning to emerge in the early years of Victoria’s reign and that would erupt with maximum vigor ten years later in the confrontation between John Ruskin and the South Kensington School. The tension between flat, stylized design and what Ruskin was later to term “truth to nature” is already palpable in the conflict between illustrations and ornaments to Murray’s book. However, it was the involvement of Owen Jones that especially distinguished the volume, as it gave Jones the opportunity to demonstrate in a practical way ideas about design, color, and style that he would theorize fifteen years later inThe Grammar of Ornament. Those ideas are especially resonant today, given recent work on the history of the book and the “bibliographic codes” of literature, since the effect of Jones’s work is to expose the textual condition of Lockhart’s poetry itself and to harness the eye as an active constituent in the act of reading. Fifty years before the work of William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, Jones and Murray showed Victorian readers that a printed book might be a thing of real beauty and that poetry, no less than painting or architecture, is dependent on the perceptual structure of its textual vehicle.

scholarly journals Olhando a obra de Raul Lino, a pensar em Frank Lloyd Wright: partindo do Arts & Crafts, com a natureza, o orgânico e a casa

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (40) ◽  
pp. 168
Author(s):  
José Manuel Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
John Ruskin ◽  
Frank Lloyd Wright ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Organic Architecture

Analisa-se comparativamente a obra de Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), norte-americano, e de Raul Lino (1879-1974), português – dois arquitectos (quase) contemporâneos, cada um deles expoente na cultura e na sociedade, no seu tempo e no seu espaço de vida e obra. Faz-se o enquadramento, refere-se o contexto históricocultural e os antecedentes da 1ª. época criativa destes autores. Neste quadro referem-se as obras de John Ruskin e de William Morris, criadores do Arts & Crafts, bem como as características deste movimento artístico – tal como as continuações do A&C, no final do séc XIX, na América e na Europa – da Deutscher Werkbund a Sullivan e a Berlage. Sobre Wright e Lino apresenta-se o seu “entendimento do mundo”: os seus temas conceptuais e arquitectónicos, bem como os movimentos estético-culturais associados – “Organic Architecture” e “Casa Portuguesa”. Apresentam-se e analisam-se os “seis princípios” de Wright e os “seis princípios” de Lino –  salientando os aspectos comuns às concepções de ambos os autores. Descrevem-se e exemplificam-se alguns temas e materiais arquitectónicos definidores e comuns, na primeira fase das obras de Wright e de Lino – como o Arco redondo em tijolo nos vãos e a Lareira na sala principal. Estuda-se a concepção da casa, como um todo, nas suas semelhanças e contrastes, em obras concretas dos dois autores. Apresenta-se e analisa-se um tema parcial em obras específicas de ambos os autores: os arcos irradiantes e as arcarias de volta perfeita nos vãos da fachada; bem como o tratamento de uma peça concreta, a lareira. Termina-se com tópicos conclusivos.

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