The Craftsman - 1901 - 10 - October

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THE CKAFTSMANOCTOBER MDCCCCI

CONTENTSWilliam Morris: Some thoughts upon his life, art and in-fluence.William Morris : His career as a Socialist,The firm of Morris and Company, Decorators.The Opera of Patience and the Aesthetic Movement.Two Friends : Morris and Burne-Jones.

The ar ff cles w rf ffen by I rene Sargenf.

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not later than the fifteenth of the month, to affect thesucceeding issue, The publishers cannot be responsiblefor copies lost through failure to notify them of suchchanges.

The United Crafts, Publishers, Eastwood,New York


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FOREWORD.W ITHhenitialumberf The Craftsman, The United Crafts of Eaat-wood, N. Y., enter upon a work for whtch they hope to gain the eym-pathy and the co-operation of a wide public. The new association is a guildof cablnet makers, metal and leather workers, which has been recently formedfor the production of household furnishings, The Guild has had but oneparallel in modern times, and this is found in the firm organized in London, in1860, by the great decorator and socialist, William Morris, together with hb notless dtstingutshed friends, Burne-Jones, Rossettt and Ford Madox Brown, all ofRre-Raphaeltte fame. The United Crafts endeavor to promote and to extendthe prtnclples established by Morris, in both the arttsttc and the aocialbti~ ~nrc.h the interests of art, they seek to subetttute the luxury of taste for the luxury ofcostliness; to teach that beauty does not imply elaboration or ornament; to employonly those forms and materials which make for stmplictty, tndtvlduallty anddtgntty of effect. In the interests of the workman, they accept wtthoutqualtficatton the proposition formulated by the artist-socialist :

It is tight and necessary that all men should havework to do which ahall be worth doing, and be pleasant to do ; and whtchshouldover-anxious. The great results accomplished by the Morris ftrmgrew out of the decoratton of a single house: the first famtly dwelling of thsMaster himself. Then, the work extended with its deep, restorative influence,transformtng the outward and decorative side of life., adorning the English homewith the pleasures of art; until, in the opinfon of a well-known critic, it had changed the look of half the houses in London and subs&ted beauty foruglincas all over the ktogdom.

With this example before them, The Untted Craftswill labor to produce in their workshops only those articles which ahall justifytheir own creation: whtch shall serve some actual and important end ln thehousehold, either by adding to the ease and conventence of ltfe; or yet byfurthering the equally important object of provldlng agreeable, restful and i&g-orating effects of form and color, upon which the eye ahall habttually fall, aa theproblems of daily existence present themselves for solution. Thus, it ts hoped toco-operate with those many and earneat minds who are seeking to create anational, or rather a universal art, adjusted to the needs of the century: that is,an art developed by the people, for the people, as a reciprocal joy for the artistand the layman. Another object which The United Crafts regard asdesirable and posstble of attainment is the unton in one person of the designerand the workman. Thts princtple, which was personally put in practice byMorrts, extended throughout his workshops ; the Master executing with hts ownhands what his brain had conceived, and the apprentice following the exampleset before htm as far as hte powers permitted. The divorce between theory and

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ii FOREWORDpractice was everywhere strenuously opposed, wtth the direct aim of creating andperfecting the art-artisan. In accepting the Morris principle, the United Craftsrecog&e all that it implies: First : the raising of the general intelligence of theworkman, by the increase of his lekure and the multiplication of his means ofculture and pleasure. Second: a knowledge of drawing as a basis of all themanual arts and as one of the essenttals of a primary education which shall beworthy of the name. With this general intelligence as workfng canttatthe Ur&d Crafts do not exact from their members an innate manualdext~ty~but, strictly in accordance with the Morris principle, they employ the nearestavailable aid to accompltsh the work at hand. In this way, interest and a pleas-urable excitement are awakened in the workman, and the thing created by hisbrain and hands becoma the child of his love whtch he seeks to develop andbeautify to the extent of his own resources.

Again, aa the tendency toward co-operation and con-structive Socialism is one of the most marked signs of the times, the United Craftspurpose to extend their influence by formtng groups of associates at numerousfavorable points throughout the country: these associates being at will activeworkers and handicraftsmen: or yet again, business firms or private individualswho de&e to build up a national art based upon sound aesthetic and economicprinciples. As the simplest means at thetr disposal of making known their exist-ence and objects, the United Crafts have founded the monthly periodical ofwhich the present number is the first issue. The position now taken by the publi-cation will be maintatned, and each successfve number will deal with the relationsof art to labor. As is most fitting, the initial monograph is a criticismand study upon the life and work of William Morris, whose talents, time, ener-gies and fortune were devoted to practical attempts toward peaceful revolutionand reformatton in popular art and in the condttion of the workman. Thearticle, based upon the two recognized authorities, Mackatl and Aylmer Valiance,is a stmple statement of fact, accompanfed by inferences and deducttons whichare natural and obvfous. The second number of The Craftsman will followwith a similar monograph upon John Ruskin, whose influence was an tmportantfactor in the arttstic and ethfcal development of William Morris, as is evidencedby the letters written during the latters student days at Oxford. The phase ofRuskin to be considered, fr hfs attitude toward the great building-art of the MiddleAges, which grew out of an intense ctvic andco-operativespirit, whose pulsattonswere felt until the negations of the Renascence period forever sttlled and nullifiedthem. The new subject will be anothet plea for an art developed by the people,for the people, and in which the craftsman and the c&en shall be intimately allied.

In a subsequent tssue, the Rise of the Guild System inEurope will be considered, with a maintenance of the same point of view, fromwbtch art will be regarded not as something apart from common and evsrydayexistence, but rather as the very means of realising ltfe.



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UQ orner r om the Bi ll iard Y@om of Emesl I. Whtte.



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WILLIAM MORRIS



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WILLIAM MORRISLTHOUGH the name of William Morrishas long since become a household wordthroughout America, yet the personality ofthe man, as well as his great part in theworlds work, is definitely known but tothe few. His was a versatile genius, eachphase of which appeals to a more or less extended public.To students of literature he isan innovator in his art; one who introduced a newelement into the Victorian age; a poet who, beginning

his career as an Anglo-Norman mediaevalist, next drewinspiration from the Greek and Latin classics, and finallyfrom widened reading, knowled e and travel, absorbed,at first hand, influences from t e Scandinavians whopeo led Iceland. In literature, William Morris is theen tKusiastic student of Chaucer; he is the creator ofmT$ Earthly Paradise; the modern skald who, Itimed,iY& e, legend and history, told to En lish-speakingfolk t e eat Story of the North, whit i? in his own

opinion, should be for all our race what the tale of Troywas to the Greeks. For others, William Morrisrepresents a most important factor in the progress ofmodern art. He was a member of that group of brilliant,earnest young Englishmen who, at the middle of theNineteenth Century, revolutionized the national school ofpainting, and generated a current of aestheticism whosevibrations are still felt, not only in the rent country, butas well in America and in France. I?rom his relationswith the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and from his ownpractical enius, Morris evolved a system of householdart, whit a has largely swept away the ugly and thecommonplace from the English middle-class home, Heso became an expert in what he himself was pleased tocall the lesser arts of life. He was a handicraftsman,



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2 WILLIAM MORRIS

an artisan self-taught and highly skilled in the technicalprocesses of a half dozen trades. He disdained noapprenticeship however humble, no labor however pro-tracted, arduous and disfiguring, in order that he mightbecome the practical master of his work. The attain-ments of his genius, of his careful and intelligent studyremain as lasting witnesses to the impetus and directiongiven by him to the arts and crafts of his time.Again, many who, throughignorance or prejudice, refuse to recognize the functionsof literature and art in the economy of life, still regardWilliam Morris as a lost leader, friend and brother. Forsuch as these, he is the man who, by the light of historyand of his own conscience, distinctly saw the evils ofsocie as it is at present constituted ; who lent his ener-gies, x, s fortune and his fame to remedK the wron 7s ofthe oppressed masses, and to prepare t e advent o thereign of natural law. In William. Morris all socialistshonor the unprejudiced man of wealth, culture and posi-tion, who plainly formulated the proposition that :

It is right and just that allmen should have work to do which shall be worth doing,and be of itself pleasant to do ; and which should be doneunder such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious,Finally. above and beyond eachand all of these claims of William Morris to the resentand future consideration of the world, there es theImemory of his great heart which so animated all enter-prises into which he entered that, at his death, a co-worker wrote of him.: Morris was a splendid leader, agreat poet, artist and craftsman, a still greater man, and,oh I such a friend to know and love.The place of Morris among theVictorian poets has been exhaustively treated by criticsand reviewers, and it is well known that, at the death ofTennyson, the honors of the Laureate would have been



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WILLIAM MORRIS 9for him an eas victory.

BHis accomplishments in the

various arts an crafts to which he successively devotedhimself, have been chronicled and criticised from time totime, and in various countries and languages, But it isnot generally appreciated that his art and his Socialismwere associated integrally with each other, or, rather,that they were but two aspects of the same thing. How-ever, this fact becomes evident to any one who will followhis life which, in its intellectual aspects, although it wasapparently subject to abrupt changes, was, in reality, alogical expansion of interdependent ideas,It is as an artist-socialist thatwe will briefly consider him.The traditions of his familysurrounded him with conservatism. He was born ofaffluent parents whose wealth increased during his child-hood and youth.ing a controllin His father, a London City banker, gain-wealthy beyon fi interest in productive copper-mines, grewhis own expectations, and was thus ableto afford his children the most desirable educational andsocial advantages, as also to secure to them, at his owndeath, a very considerable fortune.William Morris, the eldest offive sons, was destined for the Church, and for that reason,was entered, at the athere to be educatef e of fourteen, at Marlboro College,under clerical masters, Even inthese early days, the characteristics of the future artistand thinker were most marked and singular.was father to the man. The boyThe lax discipline, the weaknessof the school organization acted in no unfavorable wayupon the scholar whose moral and physical strength gavehim a unique place among the student body. Rather,these conditions afforded him ohis individual tastes and for 7 rtunity for cultivatingevelo g his peculiarpowers. The school library at Mar boro was rich inworks upon archaeol X and ecclesiastical architecture,and through these, w his remarkable power of assimi-



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4 WILLIAM MORRISlation, he ranged at will. He there acquired that accur-ate knowledge, which, further developed by minuteexamination of all existing monuments, constituted him agreat authority upon English Gothic, and, at the sametime, a protector of the mediaeval cathedrals and churchesagainst the vandalism of so-called restorations. Aschool-fellow at Marlboro describes Morris as one who,ven to solitude and monologues, was considered aFttfe mad by the other boys : a dreamer who inventedand poured forth endless stories of knights and fairies,in which one adventure rose out of another; the taleflowing on from day to day, throughout a whole term.Another peculiarity then noticeable in him was the restLlessness of his fingers. The natural undeveloped crafts-man sought an outlet for his manual activity in endlessnetting. While studying in the large school-room, heworked for hours t ether, with one end of the netfastened to a desk and% fingers moving automatically.Altogether, the impression made by Morris upon hisassociates of those days was that of a boy remarkable forhis physical force and his intense love of nature, butwhose scholarship was quite ordinary, barring his inti-mate acquaintance with English histor and architecture.Leaving d arlboro, Morrispassed under the tutorship of a Hi h Churchman of fineattainment and character, of wi e sympathies and ofcultivated tastes, which extended to the fine arts, Respon-sive to the new influences, the boy developed into a morethan fair classical scholar, and received the inspiration ofthe strongly individual literary and artistic work of hisfuture years. But the decisive moment of his life occurredin June, 1852, when on passing his matriculation exam-ination for Exeter College, Oxford, he occupied a desknext to that of Edward Burne-Jones, who was destined tobe his life-Ionresidence in wBa and most intimate friend. Going intot he himself called the most beautiful ofthe ancient cities of England, the atmosphere of Oxford



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WILLIAM MORRIS 5became for him a for&mediaeval thou ht an

-place for thatf K

culiar quality ofd culture, whit , in his matureyears, permeate his personality and vivified every pieceof work, intellectual and manual, proceedin from him.Concerning the acious influences of the i:town, he wrote K o d universityte in life:There are many places inEngland where a young man may get as good book-learning as in Oxford; but not one where he can receivethe education which the loveliness of the grey city used to

give us? The impulse toward mediaeval-ism was further strengthened in Morris, during his under-graduate days, by a study tour through the cathedraltowns of France,-notably Rouen and Amiens,-as wellas by a course of reading which gained him an intimateacquaintance with Fro&art and with the Arthurianlegends : two wells of thought from whose inexhaustibledepths he drew an endless chain of artistic mofifi.The development of his socialand political ideas was slower and later than his advance-ment in literature and art+ During his residence atOxford, he saw no objection to the monarchical principle ;but yet, in the abandonment of his purpose to take HolyOrders, we may see the beginning of his revolt againstconstituted authority. The secularization of his mind, thewidening of his interests convinced him that art and liter-ature were not mere handmaidens of religion, but ratherinterests to be pursued for their own sake ; that they wereno less than the means of realizing life, For a shortperiod indeed, he had cherished the idea of foundin areli ious Brotherhood whose patron was tobe Sir Galaa Eadof t e Arthurian legend, and whose rules should includeboth celibacy and conventual life. But the idea of a com-mon or8 anizedplanne effort toward a higher life, which had beenby Morris and his group of associates-Burne-Jones, Faulkner and others-gradually changed from the



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WILLIAM MORRIS 7ing himself in apprenticeship to an Oxford architect. The

avity of this action can not now be appreciated except!ry reference to the spirit of the times. The wealthyupper middle classes regarded the men fofiowing artisticpursuits as Bohemians: the painters being lowest in thesocial scale, and the position of architects even beingquestioned At the present distance of time,and in default of documentary evidence, we can not deter-mine whether it was the archeological, or the artisticfacultyin Morris that led him to the choice of a fession,put it would seem to have been the instinct o the bondecorator, who understands the relative values of con-struction and ornament, and who knows that he must firstbuild and afterward beautify. It would seem also that inso choosing, Morris vaguely felt that by force of his com-mand


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WILLIAM MORRIS 9artistically than the others, but who was a forthrightcraftsman, a valuable associate as an expert accountant,and whose loyalty and longing for his friends had drawnhim from his mathematical tutorship at Oxford to take upthe restless life of London, It is certain that no other suchfirm has ever been organized ; since it was composed ofOxford graduates of distinction, and artists of already hi hreputation ; since, also, its commercial object was who Iysubordinate to the interests of art.of the Corn

The main employmentthe so-calle y was, at first, ecclesiastical decoration, asi=nesthetic revival was then in progress amongthe London churches. This movement, which wasentailed by the vigorous study of history made by theHigh-Church pstained glass, 9 , created a demand for mural decoration,t es, carving, metal work and altar-embroideries, all of which, by reason of the peculiar talentsand tendencies of Burne-Jones, Morris, Brown andFaulkner, could be most intelligently sup lied. In thedecade 1860-1870, the Morris firm execute B windows forS&bury Cathedral, and for certain of the College churchesat Oxford and Cambridge; which works are to-dayobjects of pilgrimage for those interested in the modernrevival of one of the most beautiful of the arts of theMiddle Ages, At the same time, very successful experi-ments in tapestry-weaving and cabinet-& were inprogress, as may be learned from the report of Ele jui? ofawards at the International Exhibition of 1862. hisreport, referring to the objects of household art shown bythe Morris firm, declares that the general forms of thefurniture, the arrangement of the tapestry, and thecharacter of the details are satisfactory to the archeol istfrom the exactness of the imitation, at the same timeo&i tthe general effect is excellent.It is needless to trace thedevelopment of the Firm at length ; since the results of itswork may be measured by any one who has the means



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WILLIAM MORRIS 19allowed to think of what he is doing, and to vary hiswork as the circumstances of it vary, and his own moods.He must be forever stirring to make the piece at which heis at work better than the last. He must refuse atanybodys bidding to turn out,-1 wont say a bad,-buteven an indifferent piece of work, whatever the publicwants, or thinks it wants. He must have a voice, and avoice worth listening to, in the whole affair.The production of this skilledhandicraftsman was, in Morriss belief, an ideal notbeyond realization. His system was that of setting thenearestHe pre erred general intelligence to innate manualrson to do whatever work needed to be done.dexterity. He inveighed against that excessive divisionof labor which cramps and sterilizes the modern artificer.He demanded a knowledge of drawing as the basis of allmanual arts and as an essential element of a generaleducation which should be worthy of the name. In aword, he sought to unite the artist and the workman inone rson,whit K and thus to prevent the making of designsthe designer can not produce with his own hands.Although the artistic principlesof Morris have been questioned, it is acknowledged thatpersonally he made them successful, In his own case, hedid not divorce practice and theory; since to his immenseproduction of designs,-which in textile fabrics alonenumbered more than six hundred,-he added the experi-ence of a thorough craftsman. Furthermore, he did notallow his own interests and occupations, absorbin andexacting thou h they were, to blind him to thequestions of tE % rgere hour, in which he could be of service tohis country, his century and the world ; as is evidencedby his action and prominence in the Society for thePreservation of Ancient Buildinenthusiasm with which he s, and by the fearlessd sseminated Socialisticpropaganda. He laid down no empty formulas, and likehis master Chaucers Poure Parson, first he wrought,



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14 WILLIAM MORRISand afterward he taught. As we have before said, hisart and his Socialism were one and inseparable; for heentered upon his political course blankly ignorant ofeconomics and in the effort to make possible for theworkman a life to which the perception and creation ofbeauty,-the enjoyment of realfelt to be as necessary as daily leasure that is,-shall bei read. Like Karl Marx,he seemed to believe that the relations of man to manhave formed an ascending evolutionary series, developedthrou hthat ti

the successive organic periods of history, andey are now undergoin a last crisis, at whose end,these relations having been a ose of master and slave inthe ancient republics, lord and serf in the Middle Acapitalist and laborer in the nineteenth century, es,Ea11ultimately, under the hathose of brother and brotE.7 reign of Socialism, become.



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WILLIAM MORRIS tHIS SOCIALISTIC CAREER.

EDITORS NOTE.-In the effort to offer an accurate portraft-sketch ofWilllam Morris, the arttst-eodalist, handicraftsman, poet and man of business, wehave thought best not to conceal those characteristics which separated him sowidely from the men of his class and condition. The force and even vehemenceof hts nature led him to extremes which are lnconcelvable to the calm-mindedand conservative.But In his vfolent and sudden reversions from the active to the contemplativelift, we may see the effort of a truly practtcal man of hi time to control theimpulse of the prophet within him, who looked forward to a distant age wtnall so&l wrongs should be righted, and the relations of man to man should bethose of brother to brother.We present the personality of William Morris with neither praise norMame ; but simply with the suggeatlon that if we take him for all in all, we shallnot soon see his ltke agdin.

SOCIALISM is a word often vague1ately used; since its definition d ers greatly in theand indiscrimin-various groups of those who rofessTherefore, in order to understand 3: its principles.e methods of thoughtand action of any individual classing himself among thoseseeking a re-adjustment of the present relations betweenman and man, it is necessary to discover the germ-ideasof the individual, and to consider the environment whichforced these ideas into development and productiveness.In the case of William Morris,the evolution is most interesting, in that it presents aslow, natural, normal process, divided into the threephases observed in all living thins: a,weak infancy; avigorous maturity; a troub ed an passive decline.From documentary evidence,we learn that in youth Morris had no objection to theprinciple of monarch% .ances in the Oxfor Indeed, his undergraduate utter-and Cambridge Ma azine (whichwas founded by himself and his Exeter &have a true Carlylian ring, when he sa liege friends)s:

u People wlJ have a king, aleader of some sort, after all: wherein they are surely



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WILLIAM MORRIS 17W&m Morris, hitherto known only as an artist andliterary man, addressed his now famous letter to TheLoen.;rEai.Iy News, under the caption : Ein land and After scathing the authors of the f!iulgarianmassacres*and the party in England which, for politicaland commercial reasons, was ready to condone them,Morris declared that the Tories, in case they precipitatedthe country into defendin the Turks, would find onlyshame in victory. He e&d by an appeal to the workingmen, recognizhg them, for the first time, as an organizedEry;trug ling toward clearer lifm3 ht and higher ground., sarcasm, he begg2 to inscribe himself, incompany with Gladstone, Freeman the] historian, and allother men whom he esteemed, as an hysterical senti-ment&~ The wanefforts, and to meet the political crisis, thear%a persisted in itsstern isIe&onAssociation was formed by the friends of neutr ty andpeace. For a meeting called in the interests of thisorganization, in January 1878, Morris composed a songin support of the obect of the meeting, and beginningwith the words : d ake, London Lads. Collaboratingwith the patriot-poet, Burne-Jones, the artist desi ned aplatform ticket bearing a vignette entitled : Blind bar.It is interesting to know that both these unusual souve&sare extant; beh preserved in a volume of documentsbearinguponthc ternas !ii e&on.orris had now in middle lifeshown himself keenly sensitive to the problems of moderncivilization. Through a deep study of mediaeval art andcitizenship, he had come to be a Socialist in the truesense: not a propagandist and a destructive agent, butrather one who regarded his fellow-beings in some degreeas companions, and who ceased not to advocate equity,good-will and kindness. In defining the Socialism ofMorris, a well-known American critic has said: Itgrew out of his love of art, which inflamed him to bring



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20 WILLIAM MORRIS

We have seen that the Eastern Question, in its phase of1876-1878, was the active cause of his conversion to thefaith in which he died. When he entered upon hisnovitiate, by hisown confession, he had not so much asopened Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations, which forEnglishmen is the Genesis of economics. Nor had heeven heard of Ricardo or Karl Marx. His Socialismfrom the beg-inning was of the heart, not of the head.Through the same ra d powerof absorption and assimilation which cause % him tomaster successively a half dozen arts and crafts, he gaineda theoretic knowledge of the political and social principleswhich he adopted midwa in life. As understood byhim, Socialism represente d those hopes of the laboringclasses which had been extinguished more than a quarter-century previously by the collapse of the movement knownas Chart&m : which demanded recognition by the govern-ment of the citizenship and the human rights of the work-ing man. A public profession of faith wasmade by Morris in joining the so-called Social DemocraticFederation, which rose in 1883 out of the union of theRadical, or Liberal clubs of London: these bein organi-zations whose object was to advocate the re orm andcontrol of Parliament by making its members habituallysubservient to their constituents. The rise of the Feder-ation marked the first appearance in England of modern,or scientific Socialism, and the first step of the new bodywas to institute a series of meetings for the discussion ofu Practical Remedies for Pressing Needs; the subjectsincluding the now familiar Ei ht Hours Law, FreeMeals for School Children, an1 the Nationalization ofRailways. In the first discussion Morris participated,and his adhesion to the body, because of his high characterand great reputation, was counted as a notable victory forthe cause. Indeed, so important was it regarded, that aprominent Socialist cried out:



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WILLIAM MORRIS 21

at a single stroke 1It has doubled our strengthThe programme of the Demecratic Federation to which Morrisubscribed was virtuallya scheme of State SociaIism ; that 4s : the joint ownershipby all members of the State of the land, and of the instru-ments and means of production ; the distribution amongthe members of the prudu~e, by a public act, performedaccording to rules laid down by the State; the negationof ownership on

that do not perisRrt of the members of the State of things

in the using.To these theories, distant fromtheir accomplishment, were joined ractical measures forthe betterment of the condition of Kfor the extinction of competition, e working man, andToward the evils of the moderncommercial system Morris was especially bitter. Hedescribes the art&ns of t&y as working consciouslyfor a livelihood, and blindly for a mere abstraction of aworld-market, but with no thought of the wares passingthrough their hands. With these hum& automatahe thus compares the craftsmen of the Middle Ages :

Who worked directly for theirneighbors, understanding their wants, and with no middlemen coming between them+u Now, he continues, u peoplework under the direction of an absolute master whosepower is restrained by a trades union, in absolute hos-t&Y to that master. In the Middle Ages, they workedun er the direction of thiir own collective wills by meansof trade ilds,assumed tE The old system, in its simplicity,t commerce was made for man; whereasour modern system is based on the assumption that manis made for commerce ; that he is not an intelli ent being ;but a machine, or part of a machine that yie ds but one:



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22 WILLIAM MORRISresult: the degradation of the external surroundings oflife, or, simply and plainly : UNHAPPINESS.The work of Morris in theinterests of the Federation (and it was arduous and longcontinued) is very well indicated by the titles of fourlectures which he delivered in the large towns of theUnited Kingdom : Useful Work versus Useless Toil ; Art and Labor ; Misery and the Way Out of It ; How we Live and How we Might Live,The loyalty of the great manto the Federation and its interests was limitless; but theSocialism of the bodysectarian coloring. rapidly assumed a dogmatic andoccurred in the or Toward the end of 1884, a ruptureanization, and Morris was the mostimportant and df uential figure among the seceders;since the broad-minded patriot and humanitarian revoltedagainst the assertion that a Socialist, worthy of the name,could not live and work outside the Federation.A new club, or body, TheSocialistic League, of which Morris was the treasurer,was now formed, with the purpose of promoting Revolu-tionary International Socialism. An official journal ofthe League was immediately founded, and its first issue,under the name of The Commonweal, opened with anintroductory column, written and signed by Morris,which was in advance of any socialistic sentiments previ-ously expressed by him.observed : In the course of the article, he

unsIt is our duty to attack

lfza ringly the miserable system which would make allciv tion end in a society of rich and poor, of slaves andslave-owners. And again: We assume as a matter ofcourse that a government of privilef ed persons, hereditaryand commercial, can not act use ull toward the com-munity. Their position forbids it. 7sheir arrangements



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WILLIAM MORRIS 23

for the distribution of thestruggles for the

Iunder of the workers, theironapati share of the exploitation ofbarbarous peoples are nothing to us, except so far as theymay give us an opportunity for instilling Socialism intotheir minds, The Lea

complete destruction of existing SOCa!? e advocated theconditions ; offeringas a substitute a State in which land, capital, machinery,factories, workshops, means of transit, mines, bankinand all means of producing and distributing wealth shouf ,dbe declared the common property of a&During a membership in theLeague of six years (188P1890), Morris was unweariedin his efforts as a writer andto the point of lavishness wi tlY blic speaker, and generousthe expenses of the body, his private contributions toTwo hundred fifty issues of The Commonweal passed through his hands; lectureswere delivered by him in all parts of the Kingdom,irrespective of weather and personal comfort) his superbcollection of early rimed books was sacrificed to thecause that he loveB ; and, following his other treasures,his health was thrown un rudgingly into the balance.%l 1887, at the culmination ofthe acute stage of his Socialism, Morris took part in thegathering ordered to assemble in the Trafalgar Square,and to be composed of delegates from the Radical Clubsof London, the Irish National League, the DemocraticFederation and the Socialistic League. A spectator hasthus graphically described the demonstration, as the greatconcourse of people began to pour out of the Square downParliament Street:

On they came, with a sort ofirresistible force,-and right in front-among the redflags, sin in with all his might, was William Morris.He had t!e Eiace of a Crusader and he marched as theCrusaders must have marched.As in the case of the first



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24 WILLIAM MORRISorganization, narrow and dangerous tendencies developedwithin the Socialistic League which drifted toward Com-munist-Anarchism. While thus his companions wererestive of all authority, Morris, although believing in acomplete equality of condition for all persons, insisted thatthere must be a public, or social conscience, to restrainthe desires and passions of individuals; without whichAuthority there could be no Society,So, once again, Morris foundhimself detached from those whom he had chosen ascompanions in social progress, and in 1890, in his farewellarticle in The Commonweal, he acknowledged thatthe ideals for which he had so fervently labored, andwhich at times had seemed to him so near of realization,were distant and impalpable. He retired to write hismost important and mature work upon the great move-ment, which he gave to the world under the title of Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome.For the remaining years of hislife he was passive in the cause. He recognized that theaccumulated wrongs of centuries can not be set right in alifetime; that the evolution of human happiness can notbeotlxxv&ethanverygra~



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THE FIRM OF

MORRIS & COMPANY, DECORATORS.

T HIS firm, by reason of its peculiar constitution,Forty stands unique in the history of business ventures.ears since, had its scheme been offered to practidmen or affairs, it would have been rejected with sarcasmand ridicule, Even now to the prudent-minded, a similarenterprise would seem to be lacking in the elements whichassure success. Two features of its organization call forspecial comment. Firstly: It was composed of artists,students and literary men whose aspirations and occupa-tis drew them away from the method of the shop andthe counting-room. Secondly: It was founded for theproduction of objects demanding the highest or&&al&y ofconception and the most accomplished skill in ex~ution,upon a capital which was merely nominal.The idea of the Firm rosealmost equally from two impulses on the part of itsmembers: the desire for an intimate association together,which should extend to all the concerns of life; the desirealso to furnish and decorate a single house which was tobe the permanent home of William Morris.In undergraduate days at Ox-ford, Morris and Burne-Jones had devised a religiousbrotherhood in which they both hoped to live, cloisteredand as celibates. But as their thought was graduallysecularized by years and by London experiences, theycame to realize that the demand of modern times is forwork and not meditation. So, the dream of the monasterycondensed into a real workshop, and the brothers of thereligious order evolved into handicraftsmen.The house built for Morris byhis friend and fellow-student in architecture, Philip Webb,was completed as to its work in brick and wood in 1859.But owing to what has been called by a critic: The



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26 WILLIAM MORRIS

flat ugliness of the current article, the owner and histhe Kgrou of artist-friends set themselves to the designinouse furnishings and utensils; from the ta bs,ofcupboards and settles down to the fire-dogs, candlesticksand table-glass.these efforts was ret The success attendant uponvalue ; and the idea o the firm, as it would now appear,g ed at its practical and possibleoccurred simukaneouslmembers; the two 01dL to a number of the prospectivet and best-known artists of theLroup, Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown, having thergest share in establishing the enterprise; while it mustbe acknowled ed that the permanence of the work andinfluence was due alone to the patience, energy, enthusiasmand originality of William Morris.The firm was called into exist-ence in April, 186 I, and an assessment was made of onepound sterlin per share; one share being held b eachmember. Tais scanty sum and an unsecured oan ofone hundred pounds from Mrs. Morris, mother of theartist, furnished the tradin capital for the first year.% he initial step of the newassociation was to make its existence known to thepublic, by means of a circular letter which, by reason ofits style and contents, awakened much comment,antagonism and even ridicule.At this period, the practice ofthe decorative arts was understood to be a superficialaccomplishment suited to affluent young ladies; and thecurrent opinion of the tradesman was such that no personof culture and position would lightly subject himself tothe reproach of having sold his birthright. Indeed, theprejudice excited by the circular can scarcely be appreci-ated at the present time, Nor did the bitter oppositioncome from one quarter alone. The tradesmen themselvesresented the intrusion into their affairs of a body of menwhose training had not been commercial, and whose



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WILLIAM MORRIS 27

influence, they foresaw, would be destructive to theirsystem. The effect of this pressure fromwithout was to consolidate the membership of the firm,to kindle the common enthusiasm, and to establish ahealthful freedom of criticism between the employers andthe employed. The situation was a novel one, and asthe work was carried farther and farther afield, the idealsrose to heights which were, at the beginning, unsuspectedby the boldest member of yhFo;dly circle.

p I intentions of theFirm are best understood by re erence to the circularletter, and as this is become an historical document,quotations from it are of real significance to thoseinterested in the development of the decorative arts.The composition of the letter bears traces of what hasbeen called the imperious accent of Rossetti ; but, aswe know, after events more than justified the initialclaims made by the artists.first title of the Firm: The letter is headed by the

+ Morris, Marshall, Faulkner& Company, Fine Art Workmen in PaintintE ,Furniture and the Metals ; and the names of Carving,e membersfollow in alphabetical order.The document then proceeds:The growth of decorative art in this country has nowreached a point at which it seems desirable that artists ofrtputation should devote their time to it, Although nodoubt particular instances of success may be cited, still itmust be generally felt that attempts of this kind hithertohave been crude and fragmentary. Up to this time, thewant of that artistic supervision, which can alone bringabout harmony between the various parts of a successfulwork has been increased by the necessaril excessiveoutlay consequent upon taking one individuar artist fromhis pictorial labors,



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WILLIAM MORRIS 29and venture. Sales were uncertain, since the effort ofproduction was doubled by the task of creating an inte.U-gent purchasin public.6: And, hardest of all, there wasno reserve fun u n which to draw. The extension ofthe business, al Jo ough finally remunerative, at timesunbalanced the finances, and Morris, little by little, casthis entire fortune into the rapidly developing scheme.But owing to his industry, sagacity and constancy, theFirm survived, and a ca tal began to form itself from theaccumulated profits. ? hese last were, in strict law, andaccording to the first contract, equally divisible amongthe partners who, it is needless to say, bore very unequalshares in the labor of designing and executing; nonebeside Morris and Faulkner devoting their exclusive timeto the affairs of the company. Hence, through the initialfault of the enterprise, arose unpleasant complicationswhich impaired and even destroyed friendships, andnearly led to disaster, at the time of the dissolution andreconstitution of the Firm in 1874.As the Company extended itsactivities, which were at first largely confined to the!iC? uction of household furniture and stained glass,orris was subjected to the sarcasm of Rossetti. Tophas taken to worsted work wrote the Chief of thePre-Raphael&es; using the familiar name a lied toMorris by his intimates, as a shortened form Ppand as indicating his thick mop of hair. Topsy,The worstedwork, or rather embroidery in crewels, was applied todark serge of Yorkshire manufacture, and designed formural decoration. In after years, this material with itsapplied ornament, was superseded by the chintzes andpaper-ham@ s which became the staple products of theFirm. Still 53 ter, were developed the beautiful carpetsand tapestries upon which Morris lavished the best effortsof his study and manual skill, as well as a wealth oftime and physical strength.Midway in the sixties, the



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30 WILLIAM MORRISfortunes of the Firm improved with the spread ofRitualism; owing to whicth movement commissions forchurch decoration were received in great number ; Burne-Jones, Madox Brown and Morris furnishing cartoons forstained glass, and Morris alone the designs for hangings,altar-cloths and floor-tiles. The work of the Firm thusrapidly increasing, and the original workshops in RedLion S uare, W. C. proving insufficient, the question ofremova became imperative. It was first proposed to makeadditions to the Red House at Upton,-so that Burne-Jones as well as Morris might live there,-and to locatethe new workshops in the vicinity of the beautiful resi-dence. But this plan was rejected because of the distanceof the place from London, and the difficulty of countrytravel in stormy and wintry weather. Then Morrisfound himself forced to choose between giving up thehome, which he had hoped to make the most artistichouse in England, and the alternative of retiring from theCompany into which he had put so much of his bestthought and work. He chose the latter course, and didfurther violence to his feelings by rentin a house inQueen Square, Bloom&uboth livin place and works 1, large enouga to serve asops. From the Red Househe retire B in the autumn of 1865; leaving behind himsplendid art-treasures which were too cumbrous fordisplacement, or else by their very nature unremovable.Such were the mural paintings in tempera executed byBurne-Jones ; the sideboard designed by Philip Webb;and the two great cupboards, the one painted with TheMarriage of King Rene ; the other with the story of theNiebelungenlied, The Red House Morris never sawagain, since, as he acknowledged, the experience wouldhave been too painful for him. The new home in QueenSquare was not altogether without dignity, as it wassituated in the fashionable suburb of the London of QueenAnne and bore distinct marks of its old-time splendor.



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WILLIAM MORRIS a1

For the next five years, Morrislived and labored in London; devoting the time saved bycombining his workshops and residence to technicalexperiments and to new literary studies, During thisperiod, the business affairs of Morris & Company weredirected by a Mr. Taylor, a man of artistic taste andfinancial ability, under whom the Firm became organizedand prosperous. These years were also marked by thereceipt of the first really im rtant commission in non-ecclesiastical decorative worK the mural decoration ofthe Green Dining Room at the South KensingtonMuseum, which to-day remains intact, and which,although of heavy first cost, is now regarded by theMuseum authorities as the most economical outlay evermade upon the buildings.merit, proved to be of The work, from its singularname of the Firm and JY eat value in making known thee specific character of its produc-tions. As is usual, success engendered success, and thebusiness extended so rapidly as even to cause anxietyamong the members of the Corn y.p As we have seen,the capital, invention and contra were supplied practicallyby Morris, who, nevertheless, under the original instru-ment of the partnership, could not claim greater rights inthe management of the assets of the Firm than any of hisfive or six associates+ On the other hand, the memberswhose connection with the Firm was slight, might, atmoment find themselves serious1 involved in theEElities of the business, which hadyeen stablishedprior to the passage of the Limited Company Act. The

fits,El? after the first year or two, and for several reasons,d never been divided, But these legal claims nowrepresented sums which involved intricate calculations,and which, if settled, would drain the resources of thebu;hq that is to say: the private fortune of William. The uestion4 of dissolutionhaving been discussed, three o the partners: Burne-



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92 WILLLSM MORRISJones, Faulkner and Webb, refused to accept any consid-eration in respect to their CIahS as partners; while theother three stood for the strict letter f their legal rights.Thepositionof theh?ergmupk explainedin the wordsof an attorney: That as in the inception ofthe Firmno member invested money, nor gave any timeor labor, without being paid at an aof the several members ought to E eed rate, the positionconsidered as equalin respect to their claims on the assets of the Firm;further, the good will ought to be taken at three yearspurchase and ought to be included in the said assets.claims is manifest; The extreme falsity of suchsince the associates, other thanMorris, and beyond the first assessment, had contributednothin toward the capital. They had also, as theyerJ been paid on every occasion when they had$&n &istance, or furnished designs or other work tothe Company; by which arrangement Morris, in alljustice, was released from obligations toward them. Butthe usual contest between law and equity ensued, Longand complicated negotiations were made on one side andthe other. Friendships were broken, and among them,that of Rossetti with Morris was never again renewed,Finally, the dissolution was effected, but without satisfac-tion to the contestants, atld a new firm came into existencein March, 1875, bearing the name of Morris & Company,and under the sole management and proprietorship ofWilliam Morris; Burne-Jones and Webb retiring theirinterests, but continuing to aid with designs for stainedglass and furniture, At last, the worlds verdictrepaired the injuries inflicted by friends upon the uprightman and the great artist. Morris is to-da honored inEngland, France and America as a perso x& ty unique inthe nineteenth century, and as one who practised the mostessential arts and crafts only to transfigure them.



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THE OPERA OF PATIENCEAND

*THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT.A QUARTER-CENTURY since, the Gilbert-SullivanOperas were at the hei ht of their barrel-ofame. But it was impossible 8 anen to decide upon r;B irpermanent value, Now, at the present distance of time,these lively satires upon political abuses, art movementsand social va aries possess a distinct value as historicaldocuments. % he generation which has arisen since theywere composed, gains through them a more rapid andvital understanding of the times which they satirize thanit werebiograp es alone.pssible to do through the medium of histories anddramatic form, they For to these, by reason of theirstand in the relation of peo Ie tobooks. From this point of view, the most valua Ie ofthem all is Patience,t the overcharged picture of theaesthetic movement of 1870-1880, In this case, asalways, the vthe power of;K

exaggeration of the caricature betrayse thing caricatured, Bunthorne andArchibald are ridiculous and grotesque only because theyre resent theKi g rversion of qualities, culture and gracew ch might, t for the bias of the individual, have beenvery real and very forceful, The aesthetic maidenswhose rhythmic movements and utterances are followedb such spontaneous laughter from the auditory, may bec%ssified with literary parodies and travesties which aresuccessful in the degree that they offer a sharp contrastwith the beauty of the original work.

The key-note of the aestheticmovement was sincerity, The foible held up to ridiculein Patience is affectation :

My mediaevalism is not real,confesses in a burst ,of confidence the arch-pretender whomomentarily is freed from his devotees.



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w WILLIAM MORRIS~___ __.. ~__~ .~~--- ~ --- -- --- -- -- I love you with a fourteenth-

century Florentine frenzy is another declaration whosealliterative catchi.ness conceals a deeper meaning than issuspected by the many who applaud it, With an airyword dropped here and there, Patience vitalizes thehistory of the revolution effected in the externals ofEnglish middle-class life by Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelitism andall that this term implies, The aesthetic movement wasfar from being superficial; nor was it even confined to asingle branch of interest. It arose from roots hiddendeeply in English thou ht and life. It wasLi fer hapsWalter Scott who, in romances, first disp ayed areal mediaevalism, when he dared, in the face of aneffete classic art to assert and glorify the majestic beautyof. Gothic architecture. Next came the Anglo-Catholicmovement at Oxford, which although culminating in1845 with the secession of John Newman to the RomanChurch, continued long afterward to be a prodigiousforce; restoring to English churches and church servicessome part of their original beauty and symbolism, andthence carrying into secular life a love of the Fine Arts,which were re arded in the Middle Ages as the hand-maidens of re gion, Another source of the aestheticmovement is found in the writings of Ruskin, whichbecame for the Pre-Raphaelites a new ospel and a fixedcreed. Finally, the direct cause of a e art movementmust be recognized in the powerful and self-centeredpersonality of Gabriel Rossetti, who drew after him and,for a time, molded as he willed, the two younger men,Morris and Burne-Jones, the real and effective workers inthe Pre-Raphael&e, or aesthetic movement. Thesethree friends, together with Holman Hunt, John EverettMillais and.Madox Brown, laid the foundations for thepresent eminence of English art, pictorial and decorative.In 1821, John Constable pre-dicted that within thirty years the art of his nation would



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WILLIAM MORRIS 35have ceased to exist, Later, in the forties, Ruskinrecorded that the Ro al Academ Exhibitions repeatedagain and again: 5 he same oolish faces in simper,the same brown cows in ditches, the same white sails insqualls and the same slices of lemons in saucers. Arthad become a fashion, style had degenerated into man-nerism, and mannerism had fallen into pettiness.The Pre-Raphael&es revoltedagainst classicism as a forei element introduced intoEngland by Sir Joshua Reyno ds and his contem raries,for whom the later Italian schools represented alYhat isbeautiful and desirable in art, They turned for aid andin@ration to mediaevalism, as to the ri htful and commoninheritance of the modern nations. % hey rejected thefacility fatal to ideas, the artistic subterfuges and conven-tions of the followers of the grand style ; seeking their8 ides and models in artists who lived in a time whenuman thou ht teemed, although it struggled with animperfect m efi um of eY ession ;-sometimes even to thepoint of childishness. hus in the old Italians and oldFlemings they found their masters, whom they did notservilely imitate, but to whom they were attracted as tothe founders of a national and popular art.The mediaevalism of Rossetti,William Morris and Burne-Jones was real. It was dueto natural impulse, fostered by judicious study, andrevealed in sincere and beautiful forms, whether throughthe medium of pictorial, decorative, or poetic art, andwhether derived from Italian, French, or Icelandic sources.In common with the men of the thirteenth and fourteenthcenturies, the English Pre-Raphaelite poets and artistswere restless, passionate and imaginative, Like them,too, they began their work imperfectly trained intechnique, But all that was ingenuous and pardonableto the critic, in the early masters, became, in the modernEn Ii&men, open to the reproach of affectation, indolenceand even degeneracy+ Again, the subjects and titles



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36 WILLIAM MORRISchosen by the reformers and innovators were as new tothe English ear, as were the forms and colors by whichthey expressed themsehs in paWing and decoration,strange to the English eye. These facts therefore becamea fivel cause for ridicule, which was further stren -ened y a followinamong people of wou d-be refinement and little originalitr,gained for the Pre-Rapha eEthesto whom all that was singular in the new movementappealed, but who were, by nature, blind and deaf as toits true meaninthe opera of 5

and aims. So, as it is cleverly put inatience : My mediaevalism is notreal, must have been the heart,4 not the lip-confessionof many a poser of the eighteen seventies and eighties,At that time there were doubtless numerous replicas ofBunthorne, the crushed esthete, and of Archibald,who after his long wanderings in realms of faery andpoesy, loyally returned to his milkmaid love,A second declaration abovequoted from Patience calls for special comment : Ilove you with a fourteenth century Florentine frenzy.And as before intimated, this is no fortuitous alliterativecombination of words. It is wit of the subtlest andkeenest kind It betrays a perfect appreciation of thething caricatured, beside amusing the ear of the listener,just as the speaker of the sentence amuses his eye by anameless touch of over intensity. For the ictorialexplanation of the phrase one has onl to gli En ce atcertain of the paFan subjects of Bottice ,-notably thefamous Spring,-wherein the great decorative artist

so admired by the English Pre-Raphaelites, has drawntogether in a moving, dancingyouth and strength typical of pthe You the exuberant life,t&n Revival of Letters.In Patience, Rossetti, Wil-liam Morris and Burne-Jones receive each a share oflively good-natured pleasantry. Rossetti is a tar et forwit as the founder and master of the Fleshly SCa 001 ofPoetry ; the reviver of obsolete forms of metre; the



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WILLIAM MORRIS 37deviser of refrains in which sound ovethat, as Bunthorne is made to say of

wers sense, sox own verses:They mean nothing. The parody u n WilliamMorris appeals to the eye rather than to t/F ear, Bun-thorne and the maidens are clothed in what may becalled the transitional colors of the Morris firm ofdecorators. The pale olive garb of the Aesthete, thepeacock blues and pomegranate tones seen in the robesof the chorus, were offered by Morris as the first protest

of art against the aniline dyes of commerce, which hedenounced as hideous, crude, livid and cheap. Also,the sunflower, which is affected by Bunthorne and whichgrows dearer to him in proportion as he is crushed,until in the last tableau he uses it as a solace andshield-this too is a hidden recognition of the art-influenceof Morris. He, as a decorator, criticised the doublesunflower as a coarse and dull plant, while he praisedthe single bloom of the same species as both interestingand beautiful, with its sharply chiselled yellow floretsrelieved by the quaintly patterned sad-colored centreclogged with bees and butterflies. The preference ofthe artist, and his decorative use of a despised plantraised the single sunflower to such high favor that itspread from the British Isles to the aristocratic gardens ofAmerica, where it still blooms as a survival of the Aesthetic Craze of the early eighteen eighties,But piquant and mirth-provok-ing as are the sarcasms in Patience against Rossettiand Morris, they yield in point of subtlety to thosedirected toward Burne-Jones. Every frequenter of picture-shops can recognize the originals of the stained glassattitudes of the funny dragoons, as they twist themselvesinto almost impossible contortions to gaze soulfully attheir lilies. Nor are the gestures of the chorus lessfamiliar, as the long, slender devitalized arms areextended in helpless adoration, or the sinuous bodies



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38 WILLIAM MORRISwave and writhe in an extasy of love and poetry : theyare each and all to be found in the Burne-Jones book ofstudies, and recur a ainas the Mirror of _$ and again i.n such masterpiecesenus, Laus Veneris, Le Chantdbour, and Love Among the Ruins,Altogether, in view of theinterest already noted and because of many subtletiesuntouched upon in the present slight criticism, the operaof Patience should be preserved as a little dassic,containing the rapidly drawn sketches of three mostimportant figures in the art-life of the nineteenth century.



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MORRIS AND BURNE-JONES.

A NY record of the life of William Morris would beindeed incomplete, unless it contained a more thanpassing reference to his faithful friend and sympatheticcoadjutor, Edward Burne- Jones. The two were joinedtogether by what would appear to be the strongest bondof human companionship : a community of tastes coupledwith a diversity of temperament. To this union Morrisfurnished the masculine, and BurneJones the feminineelement. The one was passionate-often to the de eeof violence, active, self-reliant, even aggressive, F heother was contemplative, endowed with a Griselda-l&epatience, imaginative, idealistic. By blood both wereC&s, strong in racial characteristics. In thou ht and artboth were mediaevahsts, with the distinction tL t Morriswas attracted by AngloNorman architecture and litera-ture; while the ideas and expression of Burne-Jones werecolored with a pronounced Italianism. For this differencethe first studies of each artist were part&lly responsible:the college library at Marlboro and the location of thecollege itself providing Morris with fine and abundantmaterial for archeological research; while Burne-Jones isknown to have received the impulse toward an artisticcareer from a drawing of Rossettis, which fell into hishands during his freshman year at Oxford. In bothmen also the long course of years did but fulfil the initialimpulse : Morris became a creator and inventor, bold,experimental, and epoch-making, like the builders of thethirteenth century, whom he acknowledged as his masters,models and guides ; Burne- Jones, on the contrary, uniquein genius and personality, labored in artistic solitude,caring little for the worlds a lause, and remaining faithfulto his early ideals with a tru y feminine constancy. Thejoint accomplishments of the two men produced upon theart of their time an influence that is quite immeasurable,as to depth, breadth and .lasting effect. Together, they



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40 WILLIAM MORRISnot only redeemed the Engtih decorative arts from adecadent, denationalized state, but they carried them to apoint which commanded acknowledgement and provokedimitation from France, Italy and Germany. Even intheir separate, personal gifts--in Morris poetical genius, inBurne- Jones pictorial power,-they seemed to supbalance and support each other. They receive lement,B mentalim ressions, the one from the other, with a rapidity anddei cacy born of close companionship and the power tofeel and see in common. But they advanced to thisintellectual and spiritual sympathy from widely differingcircumstances. Unlike Morris, Burne-Jonescontended in childhood and early youth with unfavorablesurroundings. His innate faculties were tardily developed,and even when awakened, were matured only throu hinvincible determination and patience. Three years ti esenior of his friend, he was born in Birmingham, in 1833,when as yet the name of this dpreatized into Brummagem, stoo factory-town, vulgar-contemptible and spurious. for all that is commerciallyHe was the son of a smallshopkeeper, and heapart from the ew up in an austere, dreaY x home,ten er influence of woman, as s onlysister, his elder by a few years, had died in her infancy,and his mother at his birth, Imaginative literature wasforbidden him through the religious prejudices of his father,and the boy thus forced to a starvation whose pangs hebut half realized, suffered on in silence and solitude, sincehe made but few acquaintances and opened his heart tonone. Meanwhile his education was not neglected, as hewas entered, at the age of eleven, at King EdwardsSchool, by his father, who homan of the An &an Churc .d to make him a clergy-preparation for a During the years ofknowled s destined profession, he acquired aonce he e and love of the classics and of history, whichL d met with his friend Morris, became the basisof extended readings and of wide general culture,



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WILLIAM MORRIS 41At twenty, BurneJones passed

into Exeter College, Oxford, meeting Morris on the firstday of term, within a week becoming his inseparablefriend, and afterward writin of him : 5 rom the first I knew howdifferent he was from all the men I had ever met. Hetalked with vehemence, and sometimes with violence, Inever knew him languid or tired.This first appreciation continuedto be the same in kind and degree, For whenever Burne-

Jones wrote or spoke of his friend, it was with a half-feminine admiration for the ag8: essive, sturd , path-making qualities in which he mself was a togetherlacking. The undivided intimacy of the two under-graduates continued throughout their residence at Oxford,each giving and taking his share in all that made forintellectual advancement, the widening of interests andthe opening of new vistas of thought and life. Burne-Jones, filled with enthusiasm for the Celtic and Scandina-vian mythologies, gave the impulse which led to thegreatest literary achievement of Morris.ship, too, did much to raise art to a His companion-laceliterature in the daily life of his friencf by the side of, since his character-istic drawings, known as Joness Devils, and eagerlysought after by his fellow-students, aroused the latentmanual dexterity of Morris, who shortly began to coverthe margins of his books and letters with architecturalmot i fs and floriated ornament.The close bond between thetwo young men extended until it included four or fiveothers filled with the same aspirations toward beautyand the same indefinite desires to do something forOVAand way.humanity; eachT~u$in~~~ ;ar~;;;co$gd~ti~w~~Morris developed into the most original boung poet ofEngland. At the end of this period, Burne-Jones, sensi-tive and susceptible, yielded to the virile personality of



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42 WILLIAM MORRIS

Rossetti, and sank completely under his influence,Through the advice of the Pre-Raphaelite leader, thenovice enthusiast began at once to paint, withoutacademic training, or the craftsmanship necessaan artist, Rossetti maintained that the enforced dru ge;of copying from the antique would blunt, if it did notdestroy, the delicate imagination of his younger friend : anopinion taken not without reason, but which strictlycarried out as it was, might have led to disaster, had thestrenuous later efforts of Burne-Jones not atoned for thedeficiencies of his first work. Indeed, as he once remarkedof himself, in the technique of his art, at twenty-five hewas but fifteen, and before he could adequately expressthe depth of his feeling and the beauty of his conceptions,he was forced to submit himself to the ordeal of patienttoil. Two years of study under the direction of Rossetticonstituted his sole art-education, if we except the fertileproduction, the constant observation and experiment whichfinally rendered him the greatest self-made painter ofmodern times. At fifty, he had become a subtile, exquisitedraughtsman, a consummate master of color, an artist ofso renounced a personality as to be recognized in theslig test sketch coming from his hand. His faults, hisexaggerations, like those of Botticelli, to whom he offersmany points of resemblance, seemed to proceed not fromignorance, or lack ofprinciples inherent in rception, but rather from fixedCspainter. In some scheme L&ties as a great decorativeown to himself alone lay,without doubt, the explanation of his peculiar treatmentof the human body: the small head, the great height andslenderness, the weight thrown upon one foot, the inwardarch of the stiffened leg, the contrast in curve between thesupporting and the supported side, and the other pointsnoted without explanation by the French critic, M, de laSizeranne, who seems not to recall that precisely the sametreatment prevailed among the later sculptors of Greece : afact which, in view of the intense studiousness of Burne-



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WILLIAM MORRIS 43Jones, indicates that the artist followed a definite system,instead of reezea ting technical errors, until his senses wereso pervert that he saw beauty where only uglinessexisted. Another indication of an underlying system inthe work of Burne-Jones is found in his selectkmess.His book of studies, or preliminary drawings, showshow carefullagain, in or(r his first intentions were modified again ander that they might fit together and becomeintegral parts of an important picture. His was certainlya completeness laboriously acquired. He attained anexpressive line, but it was not through economic draughts-manship. He had no affinity with artists like Flaxman,Durer, Hokosai, the eighteenth centurForain, the modern Frenchman, in Japanese, orw ose sketches-spontaneous and yet restrained-it would be difficult tosay where each line stops and where each be .Consequent upon selective-.lEYness : that is the power to choose, absorb and assimilate,Burne-Jones offered frequently in his work suggestionsof earlier artists whom he had closely, but never servilely,studied. He was no borrower or thief, but simply anhonest, legitimate inheritor of the great capital and patri-mony of art. His most marked preference was, of course,for Botticelli, with whom he saw and felt in common.Titian taught him much in the handling of the orchestraof color. Michelan elosa Slaves writhe on theEnglish painters W eel of Fortune, as they were pur-posed to suffer on the tomb of Pope Julius Second.Leonardo often opened to him the secret of his alluringcurves. But it is simple justice to assert that, strengthenedand formed by his contact with Italian and Greek art,Burne-Jones never falsified his distinctive personality.He recognized his own wherever he found it, mastered itand then displayed it without fear of question or criticism.These unvarying methods,adopted early in life and pursued throughout an art-careerof forty years, the gradual gathering of materials, the slow



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44 WILLIAM MORRISevolution of a picture-which sometimes extended througha decade or more,-offer extreme contrasts with the waysof Morris, the closely allied brother-in-art of Burne-Jones,For the first named, a few months or weeks sufficed foraininga the theory and practice of any subject to whiche applied himself. He labored with a furia worthyof Michelan elo. He produced in t quantity and atrapid rate. Sls devotion, absolute or the time being, wasgiven successively to a number of interests, wide1 differ-ing among themselves. He loved, accepted the & whichthe thing loved had to bestow, and passed on to newconquests. He was in all things the complement andopposite of his friend, who lived apart from men and theirconcerns, cloistered in his art, devoutly attendant uponthe Revelation of Beauty. And thus, but for WilliamMorris, the influence of Burne-Jones might ever haveremained confined to aristocratic circles ; since the posses-sion of great examples of pictorial art is thethe few and wealthy. PileE Ofwing to the labors o the s diedartisan and apostle of democracy, the barriers of individualownership were cast down, and the work of his richlyendowed friend was scattered broadcast amonf thepeople through the medium of decorative design. t hasbeen said that it would be a serious undertaking tomeasure the flood of beauty poured by the two colaborersinto the world. But an idea of the greatness of theiraccomplishment may be formed from the statement of atrustworthy critic, who declares simply and without theemphasis that fears contradiction, that they reformed thetaste of England. The churches, the colleges, themunicipal museums and the homes of their own countrybear witness to their genius which, exercised as if sentforth from a single brain, glorified and transfigured every-thing that it touched; so that the arts and crafts of theMiddle A es rose again, and the workshop was restoredto the hig place which it occupied in the times when



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WILLIAM MORRIS 45Florence and Nuremberg and the cathedral cities of Franceteemed with simple, sturdy bur hers, whose first care wasto preserve, through common e8 ort and organization, thetraditions of their skill, and whose lives were consecratedto the religion of beauty,reform in En land, the A Consequent upon the decorativelied Arts have risen from theirdecadence in 5 rance and E ve become firmly establishedin the United States among a people most ready of all toreceive the lessons of a true aestheticism. And thus thechance meeting of two youths, a half-century since, onthe benches of an Oxford College, led to the opening of avista into the past, wherein we see the ancestors of themodern nations building and carving, paintinning, throwing into their work their stren and spin-and very souls. & , t hei r loveAnd the lesson to be learned from thevision is that a real art, created by the people for theple, is able not only to beautify, but also to simplifyKe, to unify the interests of all sorts and conditions ofmen, and finally to realize the meaning of the wordcommon~tdth.



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46 WILLIAM MORRISWhen the change comes, it will

embrace the whole of society, and there will be no discon-tented class left to form the elements of a fresh revolution.It is necessary that the movement should not be ignorant,but intelligent, What I should like to have now farmore than anything else, would be a body of able, high-minded, corn tent men, who should act as instructors.I should looF to those men to preach what Socialismreally is-not a change for the sake of change, but achange involving the very noblest ideal of human life andduty: a life in which every human beinH should find un-restricted scope for his best powers and act&es,

WLLLLQM MORRIS:F ir st publi c utterance, afterbecoming member of

Socialistic League.Education is the prime neces-sity, and it is hopeless to attempt to reconstruct societywithout the existing materials.WiLLIAW MORRIS:

Letter to Lady ! Bur ne-Jmcs, September, 1883.I could never forget that in spiteof all drawbacks, my work is little less than pleasure tome; that under no conceivable circumstances would Igive it up, even if I could. Over and over again, I haveasked myself why should not my lot be the common lot,My work is simple work enough; much of it, nor thatthe least pleasant, any man of decent intelligence couldd.zLu,&hecould but et to care about the work and its

Indeed I f&e been ashamed when I havethought of the c&trast between my happy working hoursand the unpraised, unrewarded, monotonous drudgerywhich most men are condemned to. Nothing shall con-vince me that such Iabour as this is good or necessary tocivilization. WILLIAM MORRIS:Lecture : & rf , Wealth and l+ches ; giwcn atHanchester Toyal I nsfi futi on, March 6, 1883.



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AN ARGUMENT FOR SIMPLICITY

HOUSEHOLD *hJ RNISHINGSI N al l t hat concerns househol d fur ni shings and decorat i on, presentt endenci es are tow ard a simpl i ci t y unknown i n the past. Theform of any object i s made to express t he structur al i dea di rect l y,frankl y, oft en almost w i t h bal dness. The mat eri al s empl oyed arechosen no l onger solel y for t hei r i nt ri nsi c val ue, but w i t h a greatconsi derat i on for t hei r pot enti al beauty . The qual i t i es t hus appre-bended are t raced t o bei r source and then careful l y developed by t heski l l of t he craft sman.

I n t he ei ghteent b cent ury , t he French cabtnetmakers creat ed charmi ng objects suit ed t o he pal aces and cast l es ofthe old nobil i t y. Th ey revel l ed i n rt chness of matert al t i n w oodsbroughf from countr i es and col onies di ffi cul t of access: i n costl ygi l ding and other appli ed ornament; i n fanci ful pain& g w hich exqui -si t e det t cacy of handl i ng al one saved from t rt vi ali t y and i nsi gnifi -cance.

But t o-day, w t t h t he i dea of devel opmenteveryw here domi nant ,--i n t he sci ences, i n educati onal met hods, i nal l t bat furt hers buman int ercourse, comfort and progress-w e fi ndt he mood of the cent uy Impressed upon t he mat eri al and necessaryobjects by w hi ch w e are surrounded. Even our beds, t abl es andcbat rs, i f planned and executed accordt ng t o the new er and sounderi deas of bousebold art , off er us a l esson t augbt by their form , sub-stance and fi ni sh. We are no l onger t ort ured by exaggerat ed l i nest he reasons for w hi ch ar e past di vi ni ng. We have not to deal w i t hfal sify i ng veneers, or w i t b di sfiguri ng so-call ed ornament . We arenot necessar i ry confr ont ed by substances precious because of t hei rtr adit i onal use, t hei r rari t y, and t he diff i cult y att ending t hei r att ain-ment . We are, ft rst of al l , met by plai n shapes w hich not onlydecla re, but emphasi ze t bet r purpose. Our eyes rest on mat eri al sw ht cb, gathered f rom tbe forests, al ong t he str eams, and fr om ot hersources fami l i ar t o us, are, for t bat reason, i nt erest i ng and el oquent .We may , i n t he arms of our reading-chair, or i n the desk before



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iv THE CRAFTSMAN

w hich w e pass our w orki ng-day, st udy fhe st rt ki ng undul ati ons i n hegrai n of oak, ash, elm, or ot her of our nat t ve w oods, and in sodoing, l earn t he w ort h of pat t ent, w el l -di rect ed and ski l l ed l abor:of t hat abor w hi ch educat es ; that is : l eads out and debel ops fhebidden bal ues ana qual i fi es of t hi ngs t oo oft en neglect ed because theyare frequently seen

PRO PATRIAHENW i n t he decade of 1870-1880, O ri ent al ar t began t o ecebew t de& preadat t enfi on i n France, and became a favort t e t opi c

of conversat t on in fashi onabl e salons, fbere w ere many connoisseursw bo denied t t s cl aims t o consi derat i on. Then t t w as that M . Tbiers,fhe President of the French Republ i c, summed up in a si ngle pi t hysent ence the reasons for t he nar row pre$zdt ce w hi ch refused curr encyt o deas ot her t han t hose consecrated by l ong fami l i ar&

He declared: * One shoul d not go fo Japanw i t h fbe Part henon in ones mi nd.

A simi l ar prej udi ce has esfabl i shed i t sel f i nfbi s countr y regardi ng t he use of mahogany I n t be fi ner pieces ofhousehol d fur ni shings. The preference for t hi s w ood, foundedpart i al l y upon i fs beaut y, recet ved a bery strong impet us from fheconnect i on of t he w ood andof cert ai n famous cabt nef makers w i t h ourcoloni al hi sfory, w hi ch of l at e bas been so t horoughly t reat ed byAmeri can authors, and so t horoughly studi ed by our pat ri ot i c clubs.Consequent l y, our naf t%e r oducts have been neglected and hei r possi -bil i t i es oberl ooked. But i t s t rue t hat oak, asb and elm, properl yt reat ed, possess at t racti ons t haf yi el d t o t hose of no ot her w oods.The undulat i ons of tbei r grain, t he soff, unobtr ust ve t ones w hi chthey assume tbrougb skillful pol ish, he color- play w hich runs w ert hei r smoot h surface are qual i fi es w hi ch t o be apprectaf ed need onl yfo be fai rl y obser%ed. The i nt el l i gent craft sman i n our counfry i snow rai sing our nort hern w oods t o a pl ace beside t hat occupied byt he l ong-admi red mahogany.



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hltrriorView.



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Vrew of Veranda.



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-,

-1



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STYLE AND ITS REQUISITES

T E most exqui sffe t hi ngs i n nat ure and in art are fhose w hi ch possessan i ndefi nable qual i t y cal l ed sfy l e. The piece of l i t erat ure, t hearchit ect ural w ork, fbe beauti ful w oman, fbe fl ow er w anti ng in thi s l astnameless grace ar e al i ke un orfunat e. For i n order t o gai n recogni t i on andappreci at i on i n a bigbly ct%i l i zed age, di sti ndion, t bat i s t o say : separa-ff on fr om ones k i nd i s necessary . But t bfs disfi ncfi on musf be naturaland fnberent : never sougbf af t er, assumed, or fo rced. I n t be case ofobjecfs creat ed by the art i st, st yl e must be a part of fhe very concept i on;and not somet hi ng consciousl y added i n t he mechani cal executi on.

The masters of st y l e, fbe chiefs of t he greafschool s w rougbf i n obedi ence t o mpul se, because t hey w ere for ced fr omw i t hi n ; because t he t hing seen i n t hei r mental v i sion cried out t o be born,fo become mat eri al i zed. The l i nt el , t he column, t he arch w ere not i n-corporat ed i nfo t he buil di ng arf by del i berat e sel ecfion, by cri t i cs andl earned experi ment al fst s. The str ucfural el ement w as sei zed by t hemasfer and fell i nt o pl ace beneat h hi s pow erf ul grasp : t he result represent -i ng w hat w e recogni ze now as Greek, or Roman, or medi a& al . Nor di dt he tw o great I t al i ans, Raphael and M i chel angel o, stri i e aft er fhei r di s-t fnqui shfng frai fs. The harmoni c composft fon of t he one, fhe fnfi ni fel i near vari et y of t he ofber were sponfaneous, const anf orces whi ch needednot o be fed or fost ered by their possessors, of w hi ch t hey w ere a vi t alparf; l f%i ng w i fh t hem, and passing aw ay at the deafh of t he masfers,never agai n fo be repeat ed.

St yl e i s t herefore t he quali t y and r i ght ful posses-si on of one i ndiv i dual, or cl ass of i ndiv i duals. Oufsi de of t hese l imi t s,ft s a fal se and unjust i fi able assumpti on. We feel fhfs stat ement fo befrue when w e pause t o anal yse t he impressi ons t hat oft en f al l l i ke di scordsupon our senses, as w e go upon our ways of w ork or pl easure. For ex-ampl e, t he sixf eent h cent ury French cast l e archit ectur e i s * sufgene& . *I f i s i ncomparabl e i n i t s w ay. I f lends i t sel f to he nature i n t he midst ofw hi ch i t w as creat ed; rM ng from t he l andscape of fbe ri ver Loi re as asympa fhet i c response t o he appeal of fhe sky , t he w at er, t be hi l l s and fbefor ests. Furt her fban tb s, i f represent s t be ffme of i t s bi rt h. I t s splendorof mat eri al, i fs bril l i ancy of executi on, i fs imaginati ve, l uxuriant , gracefulornament recal l fhe art i sti c, pl easure-l obi ng Franci s Fir st w bo passed



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vi THE CRAFTSMANw i t h hi s court from chateau t o chateau avoi di ng hi s burgher-captt al ,Part s, l est hi s w ast e of ti eal t h should inci t e t he honest arti sans and shop-keepers t o di scont ent and i nsurrecti on.

Now , let a reproducti on of thi s sty l e be att empt edi n t he heart of our Ameri can met ropol i s, as has been done i n severalnotable instances. 91i e result i s no l onger et t her pl easing t o he studentand connoisseur, or sat t sfyt ng t o t he masses. The feudal architecture isby cent& es out of place in a modern cit y, presumably t he borne of ci vi cl aw and order. The broad avenues, t eemi n.q w i t h t he t fe, mw ement andi nvent t ons of a sci ent i fi c age, form an i ncongruous set t t ng for t hese ol d-t ime j ew el s of art . Tbe fant ast i c ornament , t he gargoyl es and grt ffonsw ht ch w er-r un t he w hole and cut t he sky- l i ne i n a hundred curt ous w ayshave no l onger a reason for exi stence. lbey have l ost t he sense ofmy stery w i t h w hi ch they w ere once i nvest ed. Y?iei r meani ng has passedfrom the vi t al st ate i nto he domain of ht st ort cal nterest . I n t be evol utt onof ar t , t hei r place bas l ong been supplant ed.

We can thus go on sel ecti ng exampl es at w i l l , andsure alw ays of arrt vt ng at t he same concl usi on. As w e pass t hrough thePl ace Vendome, Par t s, we ar e at once impressed by t he formal , stat el ygrandeur of t he sunmrndi ng ar chit ectur e. 4li i e eager shopper w i t h hi s eyesstt l l dassled by t he gl i t t eri ng frt vol i t i es of t he rue de a Tai x i s unconsctousl ysobered by confront i ng t he grabe bui l di ngs of t he hi stor i c square: Chi l e t hestudent del i ghts o magine the space as t must have appeared under Loui s l eGrand: animat ed by l umberi ng coaches and gil ded sedan-chai rs, M b t hei rfret & of pompous gent l emen i n l ow i ng w i gs, and of l adies n hea%y vel vetand brocizde go%ns.

Again, as In t he fi rst case cit ed, l et t he ext ernal sof t hi s sty l e be copied i n Ameri ca. Tbe resul t w i l l be a spi ri t l ess, f t t eralt ranslat i on, w anti ng t he i fe and soul of the or& t nal. A sense of unfi t nessand unreali ty w i l l fore%er pervade and haunt the imi t ati on i hicb, throught he l ack of spontanei t y, has no +i fi cat i on for being: w hi ch has no basi sof art i stt c rut h, and which represent s no domi nant t hought of the peri od.

So, ad& n& g from i nstance t o nstance, t i e reacht he concl usi on t hat any art w ort hy of the name must strt ke i t s root s deepi nt o t he l i fe of t he people, and must produce as free& and natur al l y asdoes t he pl ant i n summer.

We have t hus far draw n our exampl es from archi-t ecture, but as t he smal l er i s contai ned in the great er, so are t he l esser art srel at ed t o t hat of t he buil der. Scul pt ure and paint i ng are t t s handmaids,and household decorat i on ifs adjunct and all y.

l 7i e objects w hi ch form our mat eri al envi ronmentexert upon us an i nfl uence t hat s not o be w i t hst ood. I f w e, our chi l dren



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THE CRAFTSMAN Vli

and our successors are to be t rue ci t i zens and i nt egral part s of t he Common-q&& i, we must choose careful l y t he object s by w hi ch ti e surround our-se& es ; bri nging our j udgment t o bear upon them as fut t y as Ze do uponour \ book, our st udies and our compani ons. We must support an artm& d by t be peopl e for t he peopl e : simpl e, sincere and str uctur al ; anart w herei n t be designer and the craft sman shall be one and the same i ndi -Bi dual , creat i ng for 66 ow n pleasure and unassai l ed by commercial i sm.

I f is i n t his spir i t that he M ast er and Associ ates oft he Uni t ed Craft s produce thei r w ork and aw ait result s.

The art i sti c qual i t y of t he Rush or Reed has beengeneral l y i gnored by t he cabinet -maker. l ?i e streng% and durabi l i t y of i t sfi bre have lavel y caused i t s empl oyment . But I t l ends i t sel f easi l y t oaestheffc color and text i l e schemes. M ade soft and pli able, and r et

The Craftsman - 1901 - 10 - October

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