William Morris - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Biography

At the 14 years age, it moves in a named house Water House, become William Morris Gallery. After studies with Marlborough College and Exeter College, Oxford, it thinks of entering the orders. The reading of Thomas Carlyle, Charles Kingsley and John Ruskin decides it to be devoted to Article Étudiant in architecture, then in painting, it meets Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the artists of the “Brotherhood préraphaélite” in 1856, which determines it to devote its life to decorative arts, at the same time as creator and business man. In 1859, it Marie with Jane Burden, of which he has two girls.

Its friendship of a whole life for the painter Edward Ball-Jones, who goes back to 1847, opens out through their common passion for artistic creation. The question remains posed implicit tension between the utopian socialist aspirations of Morris and its activities of creator of luxury articles to alone the range of the upper middle classes victorienne.

He died, according to his doctor, “to have been William Morris”, i.e. to have been a man of a not very common energy and a creativity without terminals.

The writer

Morris knew in his time the celebrity as a literary author. Its first collection of poetry, The Defense off Guenevere , did not obtain a great success and he was truly recognized like poet only thanks to The Earthly Paradise in 1870. He was also the author of Icelandic translations of sagas, such as Sigurd the Volsung traditional , and other texts.

Its principal romantic fictions, or “lovesongs in prose”, are off has Dream John Bull, The Well At the World' S End and the socialist Utopia News from Nowhere , published in 1890. One often regards it as the father of the “heroic fantasy”. He put also his talent of writer at the service of his political convictions, as in his work decorative Arts, their relationship to the modern life .

The revolutionist

It is in 1876 that William Morris made her entry in policy by accepting the post of treasurer of Eastern Question Association. In 1883, disappointed by the liberals, it joined the Socialists of Social Democratic Federation, then belonged to the group of militants which founds the Socialist League in December 1884 to be opposed to the orientation reformist of the SDF. The existence the League will be transitory and it will disappear in 1890 after having known internal conflicts.

During the years 1880 - 1890, Morris did not have of cease to traverse Great Britain as a socialist activist, alternating conferences and speech. He preached the improvement of the quality of the life of the worker manuals, of the very whole working class, thanks to education and the leisures, with, in particular, the teaching of the applied arts. He regarded the war between capital and labor as the essential subject of any reflection on the contemporary company. He rose against the Philistine side of the company victorienne which made it despair of a possible blooming of art in the capitalist system based on the profit and the mass production stripped of quality.

He was a burning conservationist and architectural heritage. Its defense of the ground and its attacks against the pernicious distribution of the goods anticipated, in many connections, the claims ecologists. It is in particular because of its radical écologisme that it will be Re-overdraft by part of the " Far left " Frenchwoman (the Social insecurity, Interrogations, the Encyclopedia of the Harmful effects,…)

Morris and restoration of the inheritance

Sharing the sights of John Ruskin, which it strongly contributes to popularize, William Morris engages at her sides to preach the “not-restoration”. It extends the reflection of Ruskin to not-noble architectures, and diffuses the idea that the restoration is a loss of authenticity for work. In 1877, it off creates Society for the Protection Ancient Building, “which sticks to the respect of the monument like historical document and wishes to extend it, beyond the Middle Ages, at all periods” (D. Poulot, Patrimoine and museums: institution of the culture , Hatchet, 2001, p. 127)

Key character of decorative arts

The first decoration of interior whose Morris undertook was that of its own residence - Red House - built by Philip Webb for the young couple with Bexleyheath, then in full shift before becoming a suburb of London thereafter. With the World Fair of London in 1851, Morris had been surprised by the ugliness of the objects presented: indeed, according to him, the industrial revolution by standardizing the manufacture of the objects had proposed the concept of profit, with the detriment of the esthetics and the quality of the product.

The Morris firm, Marshall, Faulkner & Co, created in 1861 with the assistance of Ford Madox Brown, Charles Falkner, Ball-Jones, Rossetti and Philip Webb, quickly acquired an excellent reputation for the manufacture of stained glasses like for its production of wallpapers and textile. It became later on Morris & Co.

In 1888, the first exposure of Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, company resulting from Art Workers Guild (regrouping of architects, craftsmen of art, painters and sculptors) presented only nine creations of Morris & Co. According to the biographer of Morris, J.W. Mackail, few members of the aforesaid the company at the time would have imagined the influence to come from William Morris.

Its creations are indissociable passions which it shared with his friends préraphaélites, initially with Ball-Jones, so much for primitive Italian than for the art of the Middle Ages, without counting their common aversion for the ugliness of the middle-class taste victorien. In testify the realization to the 66 pounds printed by its Kelmscott Close and the creation of new block letters of style neo-gothic.

It is only after many years so that Morris clearly seems the initiator of the movements Arts and Crafts - decorative arts and craft industry of art - in Great Britain and on the other side of the channel. To the United States, in 1883, Morris exposes tapestries to Foreign Fair of Boston. The Morris & Company worked already since ten years in Boston in the wallpaper supply. In France and Belgium, it inspires in particular mobility Art nouveau. One can underline with the passage the anti-sexism of that which promoted the work of the craftsmen and the artisanes with the same enthusiasm.

The heritage of William Morris

According to Fiona Mc Carthy, it is only many years after its death that the influence of Morris, the impact of his work, could be measured. In 1996, for the centenary of its death, at the time of the exposure organized jointly by William Morris Society and Society off Designer Craftsmen, Fiona Mc Carthy in general expressed its amazement of the blooming of the craft industry of art, a century after the disappearance of Morris, and its admiration for the unhoped-for survival of decorative arts and craft industries of art, taking into account the deplorable political context, environmental and commercial current.

Works

The Defense off Guinevere, and other Poems (1858)
The Life and Death off Jason (1867)
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70)
Coils is Enough, gold The Freeing off Pharamond (1872)
The Story off Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall off the Nibelungs (1876)
Manifeste of Socialist League (188 ')
has off Dream John Ball (1886)
The House off the Wolfings (1888)
The Roots off the Mountains (1889)
News from Nowhere gold Year Epoch off Rest (1890) ( New of nowhere or an era of rest )
The Story off the Glittering Lime pit (1890)
The Well At the World' S End (1892)
The Wood Beyond the World (1892)

External bonds

very complete Chronology
various Bonds
'' William Morris and his Circle ''
Site subjective and impassioned resulting from the Angellier Library of Lille 3
'' News from Nowhere '' (extracted) and other extracted
Proclamation Socialist League

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