Meaning and ‘Material Reality’: Jane Morris’ Keepsake Books

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Johanna Amos
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Book Arts ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
Arts And Crafts Movement ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Domestic Production ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Material Reality ◽  
Collaborative Working ◽  
To Receive

Abstract Though long overshadowed by her socialist–designer husband, Jane Burden Morris, wife of arts and crafts pioneer William Morris, has begun to receive recognition for her contributions to the alternative art movements of the nineteenth century, including her work as a Pre-Raphaelite model and arts and crafts embroiderer. This article furthers this exploration by examining Jane Morris’ engagement with the book arts. Through an analysis of the textual, visual and material qualities of four keepsake volumes Morris made c.1880, this article considers how the books illuminate Morris’ material reality and emphasize their maker’s commitment to socialist ideals, artistic labour, and collaborative working. It further situates Morris’ keepsake volumes within the nineteenth-century reinvigoration of the book arts and the arts and crafts movement in order to consider the ways in which arts and crafts ideals penetrated amateur domestic production.

William Morris’s ‘Work-Pleasure’: Literature, Science and Fine Art

2018 ◽  
pp. 163-185
Author(s):  
Philipp Erchinger
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
Arts And Crafts Movement ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Aesthetic

This chapter seeks to elucidate nineteenth-century conceptions of art as fine art. Taking its cue from Raymond Williams’s account of a divorce of (fine) art from (technical) work, the chapter pursues various attempts to define the aesthetic specificity of the fine arts, including literature in the narrow sense, in relation to other ways of exercising skill, including the use of experimental methods in the sciences. In this way, it seeks to show that the idea of the aesthetic, despite all attempts to purify it, remained deeply entangled in a net of work, in which experiences of pleasure (or beauty) and playfulness had not yet been separated from material practices of making useful things. As is further explained, the idea of a mutual inclusiveness of pleasure and use was pivotal to the arts and crafts movement, especially to the creative practice of William Morris. Finally, the chapter pursues Morris’s concept of “work-pleasure”, as derived from his News from Nowhere, through a wider debate about the complex relations between the sciences and the (fine) arts.

Nineteenth Century Wood Engraving: its commercial decline

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 224-234
Author(s):  
Jan Conway
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
Arts And Crafts Movement ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Original Interpretation

The use of wood engraving as a method of graphic reproduction for books, periodicals and newspapers continued for a surprisingly long time after the development of photographic methods. End-grain boxwood engraving was a truly Victorian phenomenon and an understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, versatility and limitations of this technique may perhaps best be reached through an exploration of its commercial decline. The period 1860–1900 saw a combination of competing technical, economic and aesthetic demands influencing the development of illustrative processes and eventually led to the end of commercial wood engraving. A form of engraving closer to Bewick's original interpretation of the craft re-emerged through the arts and crafts movement and the establishment of private presses during the inter-war period.

Illuminating Propaganda

2020 ◽  
pp. 369-393
Author(s):  
Ian Haywood
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
William James ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Arts And Crafts Movement ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Masses

This chapter brings back into circulation the career and achievements of the radical poet and wood-engraver William James Linton. Linton’s socialism and his commitment to bringing beauty to the masses made him a transitional figure between Romanticism and the Arts and Crafts movement of the later nineteenth century. His vision of medievalism was influenced by the radical nostalgia of Cobbett but it also spoke to the agrarian utopianism of the Chartist Land Plan. These motivations came together in his masterpiece of illuminated poetry, Bob Thin; Or the Poorhouse Fugitive, which appeared in the Illuminated Magazine in 1845. Through a close reading of both the satirical and pastoral elements of this poem, the chapter argues for Linton’s reinstatement in the canon of Victorian medievalism.

Shopping for the Nation: Women's China Collecting in Late-Nineteenth-Century New England

2008 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Samaine Lockwood
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Historic Preservation ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Arts And Crafts Movement ◽  
Colonial Revival ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Anglo American

Hunting for china in rural New England was more than a shopping expedition; it was a patriotic act, a tribute to America's commerce, and a form of historic preservation. Against the backdrops of nativism, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the Colonial Revival, late-nineteenth-century women sought to return the nation to its Anglo-American roots.

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