Beautiful Useful Things: What William Morris Made

In the midst of the Industrial Revolution, while factories churned out pollution alongside mass-produced goods, British artist William Morris (1834–1896) led a quiet rebellion of “beautiful useful things,” rendering patterns of vines and flowers, making them into textiles and papers, and starting a press to print books. “In William’s workshop, each pattern, wallpaper, tapestry, and rug... was conceived by the heart and made by the hand.” Via illustrations that employ Arts and Crafts movement aesthetics, Stacey starts with the oak leaves, vines, birds, and insects that Morris encounters as a child, using them as motifs throughout to frame vignettes that underscore the organic forms of Morris’s work. Lilting lines by Kephart slip into verse and out again (“with his friends, he began—/ to sketch, to paint, to knot, to sew,.../ to shape, to cut, to loom, to know,/ what the hands could do,/ when the eyes would see”) in a volume about considering beauty that is itself beautiful, and restful, too. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)