Arts & Crafts, Test Review

Arts & Crafts Movement:

• Arts & Crafts Movement reaction to Industrial Movement
• John Ruskin is philosophical leader - how can we restructure society?*
• People start having Utopian ideals - how can I make a better world?
• Ruskin rejects idea of mercantile economy
• Idea that work should be in service of society
• Uses construction of gothic cathedral as model**
• Bauhaus - Gropius will also point to cathedral as model
• Collected works fill 24 volumes, published book of poems at 24
• Return to medieval, back to handwork
• Most people remember William Morris for pattern designs
• His original plates still being pressed
• Morris tries to implement Ruskins ideas into factory system
• Reaction to tasteless goods of time period, back to honest craftsmanship
• How can the worker once again find joy in work?
• Flaw in thinking is that handmade craft is much more expensive
• Noble thought but inherent flaw in process
• His book of fabric samples still preserved
• Renewed interest in book arts
• William Morris develops typeface Golden - Oldstyle - based on Jenson
• Establishes Kelmscott Press
• Wanted to go back to origins of printing
• The Story of the Glittering Plain by William Morris
• Morris designs Troy - Blackletter and smaller version called Chaucer
• The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer - took 4 years to make - carving
• 1860s - Arts & Crafts Movement
• 1834 - William Morris - 1891 Kelmscott Press
• 1914 - World War I
• 1880s - Art Nouveau
• Art Nouveau driven by young ppl influenced by Arts & Crafts Movement
• Bruce Rodgers and Frederic Goudy
• Roycroft take ideas of Arts & Crafts and Americanize it - make affordable
• William Morris is an overachiever, Crane is Waldo

Test Review:

• Thomas Nast - father of American political cartoon
• Five type families - pay attention to stroke and serif
• Be able to label x-height, ascender height, descender height, cap height, etc
• Lascaux, Sumerian Cuneiform, Early Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Rustica and Quadrata
• Fall of Rome, Book of Kells, Charlemagne, Crusades, block printing, Gutenberg Bible, Michael Angelo, Histories of Troy, Shakespeare
• Understand sequence and context
• Capitalas, Carolin Minuscules, Celtic - differentiate
• Jack of Diamonds and devotional important - early woodblock printing
• Two different Ars Memorandi - 1466 and 1470 - Manual for Art of Dying - black plague - display text systems, one is hand colored, one telling reader to give money to church
• Gutenberg credited for advent of press - brought systems together - alloy, ink, paper, casting - business
• Printing valuable at time because of growing middle class, growing literacy, valuable, expanding universities
• Punch, matrix, type mold - punch most important
• Letters of Indulgences - early manifestation of Gutenberg's printing efforts
• Gutenberg bible has very even texture - textura
• exemplar page - initial drawing, planning for printed page, layout accurate - Nuremberg Chronicle - 1493
• Swvyheym and Pannartz - evolution to Roman letters - 1465-1467 - based off Venetian scribes based off Carolin Minuscules
• Calendarium - 1476 - people interested in science, math during Renaissance - addition of string on page
• Steven Daye brings printing to colonies - 1639 - Booke of Psalmes - 1640
• Louis Simmonneau - early grid systems for individual letters - too intricate for punch cutter - greater variation in letter forms - refined by applying science and reason
• Romain du Roi - typeface of King - average person could not use typeface of King
• Fournier le Jeune - Manuel Typographique - Rococo design
• Copper plate allows intricacies of Rococo - free drawing on plate with stylus
• Copper plate engravers find they can do books, typeface designers evolve their designs
• Bodoni develops to Neo-Classical style - style comes about from French Revolution - fills void of Rococo
• Bodoni characters based on interchangeable parts and base units
• Happening same time as cotton gin - mechanistic
• Develops into fat face - display for posters
• Wood type possible due to power of router - used for display not body
• Not so much designed as composed - pragmatism - what fits in the space? 1854
• Old Style, Transitional, Modern, Egyptian, Sans Serif
• Printing largely unchanged from Gutenberg to WWI
• Ottmar Mergenthaller perfected linotype machine - 1886
• First ad men were not conceptualizing, just brokers of space
• Victorian art known for aesthetic confusion
• Coming about as result of changes in society - more people w money, selling goods, consumerism
• Ephemera - printed materials not meant to be collected - inevitably are
• Louis Prang known for this - 1880-early 1900s
• Chromolithography exemplified
• Use of allegory - popular in creating graphics - Cincinnati Industrial Exposition
• Victorian era - packaging and printing on tin
• Develop relationship with product, modern American food culture
• Letterpress 1866, Mixed 1856, large-scale Wood cut 1856
• Development of toy books - books for entertainment
• Randolph Caldecott - Hey Diddle Diddle - 1880
• Kate Greenaway another illustrator
• Harper's explodes on scene
• Thomas Nast cartoon 1871 for Harper's Weekly
• Heinz develops idea of corporate identity where workers represent
• Workers set up corporate image, labor force is form of advertising
• Morris - Kelmscott, three typefaces, overachiever

It's incredible to think about the sheer quantity of work Morris was able to create over his lifetime..and the fact that he did it all by hand. I'm always more impressed by handmade work, and I don't know if it's more so that I'm a fan of the aesthetic or I just know how much time was put into its creation. I like the ideas of the Arts & Crafts Movement in the sense that they wanted to return to handwork, but their Utopian ideals were simply unrealistic for the time. I was very impressed by the book of fabric samples and wish I could see something like that in person. I think if more clothing companies and designers created sample books as personal as this they would more effectively get their idea and mood across to their audience and therefore establish a deeper connection with their buyers.