The Arts and Crafts Movement and Decorative Arts.
The Great Exhibition of 1851 was held in the huge Crystal Palace exhibition centre, Hyde Park, London.
It was a truly international exhibition of manufactured goods and industrial arts, which had a profound effect on the future of craft, art and design throughout the Victorian Age and into the new century.
The Arts and Crafts Movement emerged in the 1860's, shortly after Victoria came to the throne, and after the Great Exhibition, as the designers, Ruskin and Morris led a design revolt against the ugliness and degradation of machine manufactured products. A return to handcrafted designs would test the artistic eye and skills of the maker. Essentially this entailed the appreciative use of materials and the decorative use of the actual crafting process. In furniture construction, for example, the joint was the decoration, there was no extraneous arty piece that covered the joint.
Decorative Arts and Crafts has its own defining characteristics and
spans other quantifiable eras of design, namely, Victorian, Art Nouveau and Art Deco.
Very confusing but great fun!
