The Arts and Crafts Movement

The late 19th-century Arts and Crafts Movement resonated anywhere artists feared that rising industrialization would result in a loss of individuation and creativity, particularly in the decorative arts. Cultural, socioeconomic and political concerns, as well as indigenous style, gave each country's version of the movement a particular emphasis and flair. Blakesley, a senior lecturer in art history and fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, in this lavish survey of the journey that Arts and Crafts took through Europe, Russia and the United States, shifts the focus from the movement's British and American giants—William Morris, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Greene brothers—to the many artists and artistic communities that made the movement a worldwide phenomenon. Such a thorough catalogue is not always easy to manage in text, but it's the 250 color images that communicate the true range of the movement and its regional influences, from the folk embroidery of the Hungarian Laura Nagy to Russian kustar, or handicrafts, the magisterial stained-glass of Ireland's An Túr Gloine (the Tower of Glass) and the rediscovery of fine letterpress printing by Morris's Kelmscott Press. Photographs luxuriate in a glorious open design, beautifully printed on thick, rich paper, creating a feast for the eyes. (Apr.)