Arts And Crafts Movement Essay

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Continuing Influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement Artistic movements are often categorized by a specific aesthetic. These visual choices are usually a deliberate differentiating reaction to the current culture of art. Though most movements can be categorized by an aesthetic set of rules, such as Cubism, Romanticism, Impressionism, Fauvism, etc… Not all art movements can be defined solely within their visual associations. Nearly all major stylistic shifts in art were based on an ideology as well as a visual language. In the Arts and Crafts movement, the ideas behind the movement were more prevalent than a specific visual style. The Arts and Crafts movement not only changed the way people made objects in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it also set into motion an ideological stance that persists today. History Population increases in Britain in the 1700s led to an immediate need for innovation of the textile industry. In 1733, John Kay answered this need with one of the first inventions of the Industrial Revolution, the flying shuttle (Frader, 21). This idea of mechanizing of a handmade process in order to allow for automation and speed revolutionized how people thought about the making of objects. The making of mechanized processes quickly spread beyond the textile industry. Nearly every aspect of life was touched by the influence of the rise of machines and manufacturing. Industrialization shaped both life in the 18th century and still the way that the modern world works. The Arts and Crafts movement, like many art movements, began as a reaction to the industrialization of society nearly a century earlier. Although it had roots in Britain, where the Industrial Revolution began, around 1880, the Arts and Crafts move... ... middle of paper ... ...the beginnings of industrialization. The social issues are still unresolved, despite the reincarnation of the Arts and Crafts movement in the emerging Maker Movement. Factory conditions and the treatment of workers is still a prominent social issue. The distribution of resources and wealth is still uneven. The effects of industrialization which surfaced less than a century after the invention of the first mechanized processes are an even bigger problem today than they were almost two hundred years ago. The Maker Movement is more of a call to create than a demand for social revolution that the Arts and Crafts movement was. Their similarities, though, are still striking. The kindred spirits that are Ruskin, Morris and Hatch thrive through the use of machine-tools in order to create, share and change the world through the act of artists and designers making objects.

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