The Victorian style of heavily ornamented interiors displaying many pieces of furniture, collections of small ornamental objects, and surfaces covered with fringed cloths prevailed in middle-class homes in England and America during the latter half of the 19th century.

Instead simplicity, good crafts man ship and good design came in and the Arts and Crafts movement was born.

The Industrial Revolution separated humans from their own creativity and individualism; the worker was a cog in the wheel of progress, living in an environment of shoddy machine-made goods, based more on ostentation than function. The Arts and Craft movement reestablished ties between beautiful work and the worker, returning to honesty in design not to be found in mass produced items.

In both Britain and America the movement relied on the talen

John Ruskin was a writer and lecturer at Oxford University who had a very profound effect on the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and in the USA. He hated industrial capitalism which he believed destroyed the creativity in people's work. He admired the simple craftsmanship of medieval buildings and designs, and argued that although medieval working conditions were often harsh, at least the working people were free to choose how and when they worked, and this gave them dignity which was denied by mechanized industry.

It could be said that the concept of industrial design was born from the Arts and Crafts Movement. Christopher Dresser has been identified as the father of industrial design, the principal that mass produced goods could still be well-designed. And although many of the true Arts and Crafts proponents would have nothing to do with mass production from factories, their ideas greatly influenced the design standards of the factories.

The influence of William Morris upon modern and contemporary arts cannot be overestimated. Perhaps best remembered for the range of design of wall covering and materials his works; painter, poet, political publisher, typeface design and furniture maker have significant influence world-wide.

Morris's impending marriage to Jane Burden, the beautiful Pre-Raphaelite model whom Dante Gabriel Rossetti had introduced him to, had set him thinking about building a home. What better to make the building, and the decorating and the furnishing of it, the opportunity to establish the new fraternity. Today the house r

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