It All Starts with the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts was a British movement that began in the second half of the 1800s. Two of the primary founders of the Arts and Crafts movement were writer, art critic, and philosopher John Ruskin, and artist, poet, and textile designer, William Morris. Ruskin and Morris were critical of elaborate Victorian ornamental design and rejected the flawless, shiny surfaces and artificial character of the products mass-produced in factories. Arts and Crafts was also a social movement that opposed the long hours, mindless tasks, and often dangerous conditions that characterized factory work at the time.
Proponents of the British Arts and Crafts movement wanted the culture to move away from factory manufacturing and return to a time when most products were conceived, designed, and created by the same craftsman, someone who was an expert in their trade. They felt mass-produced products did not deliver the same unique qualities, satisfaction, and inherent meaning as hand-crafted products could.
