Learning outcomes:
This course has been designed to enable you to:
- Examine and appreciate the expression of individual Arts and Crafts skills
- Understand the creativity of both owner and artist in key properties
- Enjoy a deeper insight into their legacy
Course sessions:
1. Defining the inspirations behind Britain’s Arts and Crafts Movement
We set the scene by exploring the medieval and Tudor worlds through illuminated manuscripts, tapestries and embroidery.
Houses include Fair Rosamund’s birthplace to the mauresque enchantments of the Alhambra. Despite its Medieval Court the 1851 Great Exhibition was designed to celebrate the industry and technological advances of the British Empire. Morris et al despaired at the human cost of workers toiling away from nature and its goodness.
2. Romantic utopianism - William Morris and the Red House
Unpacking Morris’s lasting sentiment about all our homes, the drive for the vernacular and locally crafted. Rather than man as an island, life should be communal and constructive, the genesis of Morris & Co. Personal inspiration derived from nature and medieval craftsmanship.
In the footsteps of Chaucer, Morris expressed his romantic utopianism in the Red House, the practical common sense of architect Philip Webb made it work.
3. Honest architecture and practicality – Philip Webb
Webb’s skills and contacts meant that his work spanned the art of the Pre-Raphaelites to the foundations of Modernist architecture. The Red House remains his most famous legacy, active in the Socialist League with Morris, and key in setting up the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. The wealthy Beales commissioned Webb to design and build Standen, its architecture, furnishings and gardens illustrate Morris & Co’s holistic approach.
4. Artist, craftswoman and gardener – Gertrude Jekyll
Jekyll studied art at the Kensington Art School after which she undertook painting expeditions across Europe and North Africa. As a woman she was refused membership of the Art Workers Guild. Her painterly eye was drawn to William Robinson’s approach to gardening, her artistic skills were channelled into horticultural masterpieces. The young Lutyens and Jekyll adopted the architectural vernacular using locally sourced materials, their houses were then set adrift in billowing gardens.
5. Living the philosophy – William Morris, May Morris and Kelmscott Manor
The quote from Wordsworth evokes the sense of Kelmscott growing out of its own site near the north bank of the River Thames. It is the setting for Morris’s mature utopia and inspiration for the Kelmscott Press. Its philosophy and crafts were saved by his daughter May, a talented designer and respected embroidery historian, she had inherited her mother Jane’s consummate embroidery skills. This lecture puts the final threads into the weave of this course.
Non-credit bearing
Please note that our Virtual Summer Festival of Learning courses are non-credit bearing.
Certificate of Participation
A certificate of participation will be sent to you electronically within a week of your Summer Festival course(s) finishing.
