William Morris On Art And Socialism - Monoskop
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WILLIAM MORRISon Art and Socialism*William MorrisEdited and with an Introduction byNorman Kelvin,Distinguished Professor of English in the City Collegeand Graduate Center,City University of New YorkDOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.Mineola, New YorkNOV 1 2 2000
7ct A 63 wCopyrightIntroduction and Biographical Note copyright 1999 by Norman KelvinAll rights reserved under Pan American and International CopyrightConventions.Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 30 Lesmill Road,Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario.Bibliographical NoteThis Dover edition, first published in 1999, is an unabridged republication, fromstandard editions, of twelve essays by William Morris. The Introduction andBiographical Note by Norman Kelvin were prepared for the Dover edition.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataMorris, William, 1834-1896.William Morris on art and socialism / William Morris ; edited and with anintroduction by Norman Kelvin,p.cm.“Unabridged republication, from standard editions, of twelve essays byWilliam Morris”—T.p. verso.Includes bibliographical references.ISBN 0-486-40904-X (pbk.)1. Art. 2. Socialism and art. 3. Socialism. I. Kelvin, Norman. actured in the United States of AmericaDover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501
CONTENTSA Biographical NotevChronologyviiIntroductionxiiiThe Lesser Arts (1877)Delivered under the title “The Decorative Arts” beforethe Trades’ Guild of Learning, London, March 2, 1877.1The Art of the People (1879)Delivered as the Annual Presidential Address beforethe Birmingham Society of Arts and the BirminghamSchool of Design at the distribution of prizes by the latter,held at the Town Hall, Birmingham, February 19, 1879.19The Beauty of Life (1880)Delivered before the Birmingham Society of Artsand the Birmingham School of Design at the distributionof prizes by the latter, held at the Town Hall, Birmingham,February 19, 1880.35The Prospects of Architecture in Civilization (1881)Delivered before the London Institution, London,March 10, 1881.56Art and the Beauty of the Earth (1881)Delivered before the Wedgewood Institute atthe Town Hall, Burslem, October 13, 1881.80iii
IVContentsArt: A Serious Thing (1882)Delivered at the annual distribution of prizes atthe Leek School of Art, Leek, on December 12, 1882.95Art under Plutocracy (1883)Delivered before the Russell Club at UniversityCollege Hall, Oxford, November 14, 1883. The Masterof Balliol was in the chair and John Ruskin also spoke.108Useful Work versus Useless Toil (1884)Delivered before the Hampstead Liberal Club,Hampstead, on January 16, 1884.128Dawn of a New Epoch (1885)Delivered at a meeting sponsored by the OxfordBranch of the Socialist League, Oxford, November 10, 1885.144Of the Origins of Ornamental Art (1886)Delivered before the Hammersmith Branch ofthe Socialist League, at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith,London, on May 19, 1886.158The Society of the Future (1887)Delivered at a meeting sponsored by the HammersmithBranch of the Socialist League, November 13, 1887.174The Present Outlook of Socialism in England (1896)Published in the American journal The Forum,for April 1896. The piece was solicitedby Hiram Price Collier, editor of the journal.185A William Mlorris Reading List192
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTEWilliam Morris (1834—1896), a poet, prose-romance writer, designer,craftsman, translator, lecturer, and socialist, exerted enormous influ ence as a designer and socialist lecturer in his day. At Oxford he formedwhat was to be a lifelong friendship with the painter Edward BurneJones, read Ruskin, and met Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was to be ashaping presence in both his career and private life. In 1858, TheDefence of Guenevere and Other Poems was published; it establishedMorris as a rival to Tennyson, in the opinion of some.In 1861, married to Jane Burden, and dissatisfied with available de sign and manufacture of household furnishings, he founded the firm tobe known as Morris & Co. He always was at the heart of its design en terprise. The successful sale of wallpapers, tapestries, rugs, and furni ture created the “Morris look” in British interiors, one zealously soughtafter by the middle classes and titled owners of fine houses.The Earthly Paradise (1868-70) and Sigurd the Volsung (1876) con firmed and enhanced Morris’s reputation as a poet, but in the 1870s heturned—without giving up his other activities—to politics and to thedefense (as he saw it) of England’s architectural heritage. In 1877, hefounded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. In 1883 hebecame a socialist and, as lecturer, editor, and participant in publicdemonstrations, quickly became known as a man of the arts who wasalso a man of political action. This, for his contemporaries, was a para dox. For Morris, it was no paradox, for there was for him no possibleseparation between art and politics, as his many lectures and some ofhis late romances, notably News from Nowhere (1890), make clear.As a translator, Morris’s best-known achievement was a series oftranslations from the Icelandic that were published as The SagaLibrary. For him, and for many who see him as the father of moderndesign, especially in the book arts, his crowning achievement was theKelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891 and which is generally cred ited with bringing to high awareness at the end of the 19th century—v
VIBiographical Noteand thus for our time—the importance of “getting it right” when ver bal texts and graphic images are to be integrated. His marriage to JaneBurden (in 1859) was less than happy, though it lasted his lifetime, buthis two daughters, Jenny and May, were devoted to him. He found anobject for his love in Jenny, a chronic epileptic, and a comrade and help mate in May, to whom we are indebted for editing and publishing herfather’s Collected Works in twenty-four volumes, plus two supplemen tary volumes.
CHRONOLOGYBased on “A Calendar of Principal Events in Morris’s Life,” MayMorris, William Morris: Artist, Writer, Socialist, II (Oxford; 1936),632-37; and on The Collected Letters, edited by Norman Kelvin(Princeton University Press: 1984-1996).1834William MorrisWalthamstow.born,1840Family moves to Woodford Hall, Walthamstow.1847Father dies.1848Goes to school at Marlborough. Family moves to WaterHouse, Walthamstow.1851Leaves school at Christmas, after school rebellion inNovember.1852Reads with Dr. F. B. Guy, Forest School, Walthamstow.Matriculates at Exeter College, Oxford, in June. Plans to pre pare for the Church.1853Goes to Oxford in January. Meets Edward Burne-Jones, C. J.Faulkner, R. W. Dixon, Harry Macdonald, and William Fulford. In rooms at Exeter College by December. During thisand following year reads Ruskin’s Stones of Venice, Carlyle’sPast and Present, Thorp’s Northern Mythologies, andCharlotte Yonge’s The Heir of Redclyffe.1854Visits Belgium and Northern France in the summer, seeing thepaintings of Memling and Van Eyck, and Amiens, Beauvais,and Rouen cathedrals. Meets Cormell Price. Reads Ruskin’sEdinburgh Lectures and becomes aware of the PreRaphaelites. Morris, Burne-Jones, and their circle plan amonastic brotherhood.VllMarch24,atElmHouse,
viiiChronology1855Reads Chaucer and Malory. Makes second tour of France,accompanied by Burne-Jones and Fulford. Morris decides notto take orders, and to follow art as a career.1856Edits and finances the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine.Articled to G. E. Street, the architect, in whose Oxford officehe meets Philip Webb. Takes his B.A. degree. Moves toLondon with Street’s office and shares rooms with BurneJones. Meets Rossetti and abandons architecture for paintingby end of the year.1857Decorative work begins at 17 Red Lion Square. Frescoes inthe Oxford Union painted, under leadership of Rossetti.Meets Jane Burden. Macmillan rejects The Defence ofGuenevere.1858The Defence of Guenevere published by Bell and Daldy atMorris’s own expense. With Faulkner and Webb, visits Franceagain.1859Morris and Jane Burden married on April 26. Tour of France,Belgium, and the Rhineland. Philip Webb builds Red House,at Upton, Kent, for them.1860Morrises move into Red House. Edward Burne-Jones andGeorgiana Macdonald married on June 9.1861Firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. founded. JaneAlice (“Jenny”) born January 17. Morris begins writing sto ries for The Earthly Paradise.1862Mary (“May”) Morris born March 25. Firm shows work atthe Great Exhibition and is awarded two gold medals.1864Morris ill with rheumatic fever. The Burne-Joneses decideagainst sharing Red House, and the plan for a “Palace of Art”there is abandoned.1865Red House sold to a retired naval officer and Morris familymoves to 26 Queen Square, London, where the firm also setsup shop.1866The Earthly Paradise takes form. Morris visits France again,with Warington Taylor and William Fulford.1867The Life and Death of Jason, originally intended as a tale inThe Earthly Paradise, published separately in January. Firmbegins decoration of dining room at South KensingtonMuseum.
ChronologyIX1868The Earthly Paradise, Volume I, published in April. Morrisbegins studying Icelandic with Eirikr Magnusson.1869“The Saga of Gunnlaug Worm-tongue” published in theFortnightly Review (January). The Story of Grettir the Strongpublished in June. Morris takes his wife to Bad Ems for herhealth. Burne-Jones’s breakdown, precipitated by affair withMary Zambaco.1870Volumes I and III of The Earthly Paradise published.Translation (with Magnusson) of Volsunga Saga published.Completes first illuminated manuscript, A Book of Verse, asgift for Georgiana Burne-Jones. Meets Aglaia Coronio andbegins long friendship and correspondence.1871Takes Kelmscott Manor, Lechlade, Gloucestershire, in jointtenancy with Rossetti in June. Rossetti and Jane Morris andchildren take up residence there. In July Morris leaves on firstIcelandic trip, accompanied by Faulkner, Magnusson, andW. H. Evans. Makes an illuminated Rubaiyat of OmarKhayyam for Edward Burne-Jones. A second (on vellum), agift for Georgiana Burne-Jones, begun and completed follow ing year.1872Morris family leaves Queen Square (firm continues there) forHorrington House, Turnham Green. Love is Enough pub lished. Rossetti suffers breakdown and attempts suicide.1873With Burne-Jones, visits Florence and Siena in spring. Secondtrip to Iceland in summer.1874Rossetti gives up his share of Kelmscott Manor. Morris takesfamily on trip to Belgium. In winter of 1874-75, begins illu minated Aeneid on vellum.1875Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Co. dissolved and reestab lished as Morris and Co., with Morris as single owner. TakesM.A. degree at Oxford. Three Northern Love Stories pub lished. Begins experiments with dyeing, staying with ThomasWardle, at Leek, for the purpose. Morris’s translation of theAeneid published.1876Becomes Treasurer of Eastern Question Association and be gins first period of political activity. Appointed Examiner atSchool of Art, South Kensington. Jenny suffers first epilepticattack and becomes semi-invalid for the rest of her life. Sigurdthe Volsung published.1877Gives first public lecture, “The Decorative Arts.” Helps found
XChronologythe Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (“AntiScrape”) and becomes its first secretary.1878Takes family on visit to Venice, Verona, and Padua in spring.Move to Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, on return. Morrisbegins tapestry weaving. Russo-Turkish war ends with Treatyof San Stefano in March; after Congress of Berlin, June-July,EQA becomes inactive.1879Leads protest by S.P.A.B. against proposed restorations at St.Mark’s, Venice. Becomes treasurer of the National LiberalLeague. First meeting with H. M. Hyndman, founder in 1881of the Democratic Federation.1880Firm decorates Throne Room at St. James’s Palace.1881Merton Abbey works of Morris and Co. started.1882Hopes and Fears for Art (first collection of essays) published.Death of Rossetti on April 9.1883Joins Democratic Federation on January 13. Made HonoraryFellow of Fxeter College on same day. Death of Karl Marx,March 14. High warp tapestry started at Merton Abbeyworks. Lecture, “Art and Democracy,” sponsored by RussellClub and delivered in University Hall, Oxford, with Ruskin inchair, in November.1884Partially subsidizes Justice, organ of the DemocraticFederation. Chants for Socialists and A Summary of thePrinciples of Socialism (with H. M. Hyndman) published. Indissension with Hyndman at end of year, and along with oth ers resigns from Democratic Federation (renamed SocialDemocratic Federation in August).1885The Socialist League founded and Commonweal started withMorris as editor. Free speech demonstration, Dod Street, onSeptember 20. Morris arrested when protesting sentencing offree speech demonstrators (charge dismissed in court nextday). The Pilgrims of Hope published in Commonweal,1885-86.1886Demonstration of unemployed in Trafalgar Square, February8 (“Black Monday”). A Dream of John Ball appears in Com monweal, 1886—87. A Short Account of the Commune of Paris(with E. Belfort Bax and Victor Dave) published.1887Morris’s translation of the Odyssey published in April. TheTables Turned; or Nupkins Awakened produced at hall ofSocialist League on October 15. Trafalgar Square demonstra-
Chronologyxition attacked by police, November 13 (“Bloody Sunday”).Pallbearer at funeral of Alfred Linnell, who was fatally in jured in demonstration.1888Signs of Changes, second volume of lectures, published inMay. Lectures on tapestry weaving at the first exhibition ofthe Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. Attends the first ArtCongress, held in Liverpool. The House of the Wolfings pub lished in December. (Takes interest in its design and begins toconsider the technique of printing.)1889Delegate at International Socialist Congress, July, in Paris, atwhich Second International is founded. London Dock Strike(August 14—September 14). The Roots of the Mountains pub lished in November. Opens series of lectures at second exhibi tion of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. Attends ArtCongress in Edinburgh (November).1890Designs type, preparing to start the Kelmscott Press. Newsfrom Nowhere appears in Commonweal. Leaves SocialistLeague at end of year and forms Hammersmith SocialistSociety.1891The Kelmscott Press begins printing in January; its first book.The Story of the Glittering Plain, issued in May. Poems by theWay and first volume of Saga Library published in October.Serious illness. Takes Jenny to France. Address on PreRaphaelites at Municipal Art Gallery, Birmingham, inOctober.1892Death of Tennyson on October 13. Morris mentioned as pos sible candidate for Laureateship. Reputedly declines to beconsidered. Elected Master of the Art Workers’ Guild for theyear. Principal Kelmscott Press books: The Defence ofGuenevere, The Golden Legend, The Recuyell of the Historyesof Troye. Second volume of Saga Library published.1893Joint Manifesto of English Socialists drawn up by Morris,G. B. Shaw, and H. M. Hyndman. Socialism: Its Growth andOutcome (with E. Belfort Bax) published. Principal KelmscottPress books: More’s Utopia, News from Nowhere.1894Morris’s mother dies at age 90. Principal Kelmscott Pressbooks: The Wood beyond the World, Swinburne’s Atalanta inCalydon, Keats’s Poems, and Rossetti’s Sonnets and LyricalPoems. Sydney Carlyle Cockerell becomes Secretary of theKelmscott Press.1895Morris goes to Rottingdean for his health. Death of Friedrich
xiiChronologyEngels in August. Kelmscott Press publishes Beowulf(Morris’s translation) and The Life and Death of Jason.Purchases Huntingfield Psalter and Tiptoft Missal. Speaks atSergius Stepniak’s funeral.1896Kelmscott Press publishes Chaucer and The Well at theWorld’s End. Purchases Windmill Psalter (the last manuscripthe was to buy). Sea voyage to Norway in attempt to restorehealth. Death of Morris, October 3.1898Death of Burne-Jones, Bernard Quaritch, and Kate Faulkner.Sale of Morris’s library at auction by Sotheby’s. FinalKelmscott Press volumes are issued, and the Press is closed.1900Death of John Ruskin.1906Death of Aglaia Coronio. Final volume (6) of the SagaLibrary completed and published by Eirikr Magnusson.Deaths of the following:1914Jane Morris.1915Philip Webb.1920Georgiana Burne-Jones.1935Jenny Morris.1938May Morris.1962Sydney Carlyle Cockerell.
INTRODUCTIONWilliam Morris was born on March 24, 1834, and died on October 3,1896. Thus, his life spanned the period of high Victorianism in art andliterature. His life spanned, too, the simultaneous growth of industrialcapitalism and the rise of the challenge to it by socialism. For Morris, thesubject of 19th-century art and the subject of socialism were inseparable.He was solidly middle class by birth, was educated at Exeter College,Oxford, and was left an annual income by his father, who died whenMorris was still a boy. Paradoxically, he became both a reformer ofmiddle-class taste through the successful promotion of the “Morrislook” in interior decoration (carried on by Morris and Co., the firm hefounded in 1861 and led for the rest of his life), and a proclaimed enemyof the class into which he was born and which, through his own art, heserved.Yet to say this barely begins to suggest his importance and influence.As a socialist, he lectured indefatigably, edited the journal Common weal, wrote articles for it, and increasingly came to be seen by the work ing class as a true friend among their middle-class would-be leaders. Hewas a man who himself worked with his hands, who organized and at tended meetings with socialists of working-class origin, and who metand corresponded with them without condescension and often with hu mility, as his letters clearly show. As a leader in the arts, he is regardedas the father of the arts-and-crafts movement, who successfully over came the 19th-century distinction between the fine artist and the crafts man. His legacy in this area is more vigorous today than ever. He wasa reformer of the book arts (typography, page layout, quality of paper)and thus of the arts relevant to all visual material combining word andimage, which are more central to our own culture every day.The essays collected here, though they must be read within the frameof his life and of his times (see the chronology, p. vii), articulate hischief attitudes and ideas and demonstrate how inseparable from eachother were his ideas about art and about society. Indeed, though he didxiii
XIVIntroductionnot become a socialist until 1883, and the essay “Art under Plutocracy”is the first major address he delivered as a socialist, it is already appar ent in his 1877 lecture, “The Lesser Arts,” that he saw economic historyand class consciousness as the causes of the lamentable separation ofthe crafts and the fine arts, and the causes of relegating to an inferiorsocial and economic position the practitioners of the first. “Art underPlutocracy” emphasizes and develops still another of his positions: theinevitability of the transformation of society through an historicalprocess. Morris called himself a Marxist after 1883. It seemed strangeto many that, as an orthodox 19th-century Marxist, he continuouslyforegrounded the fate of art. Even his demand that the working classesachieve healthier living conditions and more leisure rested on the viewthat a chief—if not the chief—human pleasure is in making and usingarticles and other cultural artifacts that are known to be useful andthought to be beautiful.Indeed, his most profound statement of what art is resemblesnothing so much as contemporary theory that society is a series of in terpenetrating texts, a theory that is itself socially radical in origin andadherence. “I. ask you to extend the word art,” Morris says to his lis teners, at a meeting that was being conducted at Unive
standard editions, of twelve essays by William Morris. The Introduction and Biographical Note by Norman Kelvin were prepared for the Dover edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Morris, William, 1834-1896. William Morris on art and socialism / William Morris ; edited and with an introduction by Norman Kelvin, p. cm.
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3.1. William Morris William Morris (1834–1896) was a powerful figure in the realm of art and politics in the late Victorian era. His work and teachings had an enormous impact on contemporary artists who felt that decorative art had fallen asunder in the industrialized Victorian England. Morris’s thinking was deeply grounded in Romantic ideas.
William Morris died in 1896 and the centenary of his death in 1996 was widely celebrated and acclaimed with conferences, symposia, workshops, publications, and Internet websites. Many libraries presented exhibitions of Morris’s Kelmscott Press publications. The Kelmscott Press was Morris
William Morris(1834 - 1896) William Morris was born in Essex and educated at Exeter College, Oxford. He was the founding editor of the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (1856) in which many of his early poems appear. He was a practising painter (1857-62) and public lecturer on art, archi
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