Reflection

I thought that the lecture last week was quite interesting and informative. 

I researched on Jacquard loom and found that it is a mechanical loom , invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801, that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns such as brocade, damask and matelasse. The loom was controlled by a chain of cards, cards punched together, laced together into a continuous sequence. 

William Morris was a leading member of the Arts and Crafts movement. He is best know for his pattern designs particularly on fabrics and wallpapers. His vision in linking art to industry by applying the values of fine art to the production of commercial design was a key stage in the evolution of design. 

He was an artist, designer, printer, typographer and champion of socialist ideals. He believed that a designer should have a working knowledge of any media that he used and as a result he spent a lot of time teaching himself a wide variety of techniques. 

The Arts and Crafts Movement was a reaction against the Industrial Revolution. The development of the steam engine by James Watt in 1765 led to the mechanization of industry, agriculture and transportation and changed the life of the working man in Britain. The cities and towns grew to accommodate the expanding industries and the influx of workers from the countryside looking for employment. However, living standards gradually deteriorated and industrialization left people with a sense that their life had changed for the worst. As a result, they lost that feeling of security and belonging which comes from living in smaller communities.
The members of the Arts and Crafts Movement included artists, architects, designers, craftsmen and writers. They feared that industrialization was destroying the environment in which traditional skills and crafts could prosper, as machine production had taken the pride, skill and design out of the quality of goods being manufactured. They believed that hand crafted objects were superior to those made by machine and that the rural craftsman had a superior lifestyle to those who slaved in the urban mills and factories. They were convinced that the general decline of artistic standards brought on by industrialization was linked to the nation's social and moral decline.The Arts and Crafts Movement formed into various crafts guilds to try to recreate the dignified working environment that existed in the medieval crafts guilds. They gave themselves names such as the Century Guild, the Guild of Saint George, the Art Workers Guild and the Guild of Handicraft.
The Century Guild was the first of the craft guilds to form. It was founded in 1882, under the influence of William Morris, by the architect and designer A.H. Mackmurdo. In 1884 the guild published a quarterly journal called ''Hobby Horse" to promote their aims and ideals. In particular, they championed the craft of printing as an art form which inspired Morris to found the Kelmscott Press.