Arts & Crafts was an English art movement of the Victorian era (late nineteenth century), whose members followed the ideas of John Ruskin (Ruskin) and William Morris about the artistic superiority of handicrafts over industrial products. William Morris, artist, art theorist, writer, publicist and politician, tried to put into practice John Ruskin's utopian ideas about the revival of medieval aesthetics. The Arts and Crafts movement can be seen as a form of resistance to the tastes of the Victorian era. The Arts and Crafts movement was ideologically close to the aspirations of English Pre-Raphaelite artists. Morris shared romantic beliefs and was a fan of Gothic. He was alien to the rationalism of classicism, however, he saw the source of artistic taste in the art of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. The ideas of Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement were partly anticipated by the work of the English artist, writer and art historian Owen Jones, one of the organizers of the first World's Fair in London in 1 and author of the book "The Grammar of Ornament" (1851) [1856].

The Arts and Crafts movement served as a stimulus for the formation of new art and in some cases is seen as an important source of Art Nouveau. In part, it anticipated the ideas of future industrial design. Similar associations have sprung up in many countries. In England: the Guild of the Century, in Germany: the Werkbund, in Austria: the Vienna workshops, in Russia: the Abramtsevo circle and workshops in Talashkino.

The Arts and Crafts movement was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, when impersonal industrial objects became part of everyday life. Morris and the Pre-Raphaelite artists, idealizing the Middle Ages, shared John Ruskin's beliefs about the superiority of handmade products over factory-made products. According to them, mass production leads to the leveling of tastes, the disappearance of aesthetics from the surrounding reality, aesthetic and even moral degradation of both creators and consumers of goods. Supporters of the Arts and Crafts movement, in continuation of medieval craft guilds, formed communities, each with its own style, specialization and leaders. There they discussed their ideas and shared their experiences. Morris himself shared the ideals of socialism, believing that art and craft could change the social order and improve the quality of life. In the design and manufacture of products by hand and on ancient machines, preference was given to simplicity, conciseness of forms, the identification of natural, natural qualities of the material, plant and animalistic ornament corresponding to these qualities.

The Arts and Crafts movement was born as a counter to nineteenth-century industrialization. Sophisticated aesthetes and leaders of the Aesthetic Movement, which originated in England, were convinced that mass production inevitably leads to a deterioration in the appearance and quality of goods. The goal of the Arts and Crafts movement was to popularize traditional handicraft work. The core of the movement was made up of artists, architects, writers, artisans, united by the belief in the superiority of handmade objects over factory-made products. Factory production, in their opinion, led to the degradation of both the creator and the buyer of the product. The works of supporters of the Arts and Crafts Movement are distinguished by external simplicity, conciseness of forms, the desire of the creators to harmoniously combine the function, design, form and décor of products. In its simplest form, the décor repeated the structural elements - for example, furniture was decorated with patterns of wooden sheet piles and pegs.

One of the first to link the degradation of the aesthetic consciousness of the industrial era with the moral state of the nation was the architect and decorator Augustus Pugin. Like many other Victorian architects, he was an adherent of neo-Gothic, which symbolized for him the truly Christian values of the Middle Ages. Pugin became famous for the design of the new Houses of Parliament (1835-1837), and the objects and architectural objects he created became a source of inspiration for many artists, including William Burgess, John Ruskin and William Morris. However, Morris himself was alien not only to antiquity, the art of the Italian Renaissance, classicism, but also to the game in the Middle Ages, the superficial stylizations of Owen Jones, Augustus Pugin, and even the naivety of the Pre-Raphaelites. Morris approached the matter differently: very pragmatically and technologically. He himself studied weaving, bookbinding, pottery, wood carving and metal engraving. He made book bindings, invented new fonts. For two years he worked on a unique edition of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, translated Homer's poem "The Odyssey" into English. William Morris formulated his aesthetic credo as follows: "In addition to the desire to create beautiful things, the main passion of my life was and is hatred of modern civilization".

The development of the Arts and Crafts movement in the UK went through two stages. At the first stage, when the movement was led by Morris, his followers drew inspiration from natural: plant and animalistic motifs - this is especially noticeable in Morris's drawings for paper wallpaper and printed fabrics. In the second stage, artists, including Arthur McMurdo of the Century Guild, made greater use of geometrized shapes and geometric ornamentation. William de Morgan's pottery, Walter Crane's porcelain, and architect and designer Charles Ashby's multicolored enamel metalwork reflect the aesthetics of the second stage of the Arts and Crafts movement.

In 1861, William Morris founded the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (later renamed Morris & Co.). Her workshops made woven products, furniture, stained-glass windows, metal products. Morris attracted his friends, Pre-Raphaelite painters, to work in the firm: E. Burne-Jones, F. M. Brown, J. E. Millet.

Passionate socialists, they were convinced that a return to the traditions of craftsmanship would raise the standard of living of the poor of Victorian England and, thus, make the world a better place. It is ironic that most of the handmade products of Morris & Co. were much more expensive than industrial products and could only be bought by wealthy customers, so despised by members of the movement.

Following the example of medieval craft guilds, supporters of the movement created guilds and craft societies, each with its own style, specialization and leaders, in which they discussed their ideas and shared experiences. Among them are the Guild of St. John. George, the Guild of the Century, the Guild and School of Handicraft, the Cotswold Hills School, and the Guild of Artists, whose purpose was "to educate the fine arts and crafts through lectures, meetings, demonstrations, discussions, and other methods; to set and maintain high standards in design and craft... by any means that benefit society." The Art Workers' Guild was created by the merger of two pre-existing groups, a group of five young architects known as the Society of St. John. George, and the Group of Fifteen, founded by writer and designer Lewis F. Day along with designer and illustrator Walter Crane.

Its members included such well-known artists as Morris, McMurdo, Ashby and Charles Voysey. While Morris & Co., as a manufacturing firm, had an orderly structure, and the members of the Guild of the Century were united by a close working relationship, there was no such unity in the Guild of Art Workers: its members worked in their own studios and workshops. Wanting to widely demonstrate and thereby glorify their work, they came up with the idea of organizing an exhibition. Overcoming all obstacles, in 1888 the Guild held its first exhibition at the New Gallery on Regent Street in London, directed by Walter Crane. Its name, the Arts and Crafts Society Exhibition, gave its name to the entire movement. Products of applied and decorative arts (the word "design" as a term has not yet been used), which came out of the workshops of the Arts and Crafts, were united by the concept of the "new English style", or "Studio style", after the name of the art magazine "The Studio" founded by Morris. The magazine has been published monthly in London since 1895. Its editor was Charles Holm.

The best products of the "Studio style" were distinguished by rationality, constructiveness, although they were supplied with "historical décor". However, made by hand, they were much more expensive than the products of large industrial enterprises and could not compete with them in the market. After Morris's death in 1896, his workshops were headed by John Henry Dearl (1860–1932), a textile and glass artist. For some time, the activities of the "Arts and Crafts" were supported by enlightened amateurs and patrons of the arts, but then the circle of customers dried up and the activities of the workshops ceased by itself. In 1886, with the support of Morris, his follower Charles Ashby founded a school of crafts in London. Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (founded after the first World Exhibition of 1851), one of the halls is decorated in the "Studio style" with works from the workshops of W. Morris.

Despite the fact that the Arts and Crafts movement originated in Great Britain, it soon gained recognition in many European countries and in the United States. In Scandinavia and Central Europe, his influence led to the revival of national traditions of artistic crafts, in America the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement were embodied in the mission style, or the style of the Golden Oak. The Arts and Crafts movement had a great influence on the development of aesthetics in the visual arts, its followers proposed the concept of the influence of art on society, in addition, it became the forerunner of Art Nouveau, and certain principles of shaping were subsequently implemented in the currents of functionalism, constructivism, in the Bauhaus school and had an impact on the emergence of industrial design.