William Morris

by Arthur Clutton-Brock

Through his eclecticism, William Morris (1834-1896) was one of the most emblematic personalities of the nineteenth century. Painter, architect, poet and engineer, wielding the quill as well as the brush, he jolted Victorian society by discarding standards established by triumphant industry. His commitment to the writing of the Socialist Manifesto was the logical result of the revolution he personified in his habitat, the form of his design and the colours he used. Forerunner of twentieth-century designers, he co-founded with John Ruskin the Arts and Crafts movement. As an independent man, William Morris led the way to Art Nouveau and later Bauhaus. Through the essential body of his written and visual work, Arthur Clutton-Brock’s masterwork deciphers the narrow relationship between ideals and creation, as well as between evolution and revolution.

Genres: Art, Biography

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

1868-1924

Reviews

[rairai :;(∩´﹏`∩);: · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it in church during work because we have stained glass windows and a tapestry from William Morris's company. He was an interesting and likeable man and there were some really good lines in there. Also it was in french. Some parts were a bit boring and i also was sad I couldn't read his poetry in the original language because it seemed beautiful, and so the analysis pages werent my favourite part. Anyway good book i'll go read his poems now

[Mo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is written in easily readable style which lacks a bit of depth. More for the layperson than art historians.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book for 50p from the Bishopsgate book sale. I have a much longer biography of William Morris that I still haven't read as it is very large. But this was much shorter and so I thought it'd be a better place to start. While it went chronologically through his life it was more about his aims and ideals than anything else. The author definitely didn't appreciate William Morris for the same reasons I do which made some of the parts less interesting to me but I was really taken by this passage,

The twice born on the other hand are not at ease and their youth is often unpleasing because they are so full of a sense of discord in themselves. They do not know what they want to be or what they would make of life, and they are restless, imitative and affected. But life is a process of discovery for them and they refuse no experience. They are always in process of making. Sometimes this process is gradual, sometimes it is all concentrated in that sudden rebirth which we call conversion. In any case, if they are not wrecked by early inexperience, they improve with years; their very faults change into virtues and they profit by their worst errors. And this happy change in them makes us feel that life is not merely something that happens and is done with, giving good to some and evil to others, but that it is an experience, with a purpose beyond itself, by which the least gifted may profit through their defects.

[^ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biographies written close to the period of their subject are, to me, always more interesting than those written a generation or more later; because societies change over time. Mr Arthur Clutton-Brock wrote for the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) on many of the same subjects that William Morris devoted his life to. Unlike many journalists today, he presents an analysis of his material; for example a comparison of Morris' poems “The Lovers of Gudrun” and “Sigurd” to demonstrate why he believes the latter to be of a higher art than the former.

Reading through this book, Clutton-Brock’s sympathetic understanding shines through; he is clearly writing about subjects in which he has a strong personal interest in, and proven technical knowledge of. Unsurprisingly then, this book is a delightful read.