The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, Part 6:--M Hugh Baillie-Scott, C F A Voysey, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and the Cotswold "School"

Impact on Furniture Design With Emergence of Vernacular/Organic Architecture, 1850s-1900s

Directory for Pages on the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain

[under construction 11-10-09]

The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, Part 1:-- August Northmore Welby Pugin and Neo-Gothicism--

The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, Part 2:-- John Ruskin--

The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, Part 3:-- William Morris--

The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, Part 4:-- Edward William Godwin and Bruce Talbert, and Christopher Dresser--

The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, Part 5:-- Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo--

The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, No 6:-- M Hugh Baillie-Scott,C F A Voysey, Charles Rennie Mackintosh

See examples of Furniture With Vernacular/Organic Architecture Designs in Isabelle Anscombe's Arts and Crafts Style

Anscombe's book is not available for viewing online, but, if you're interested on bookfinder.com you can find a copy for a reasonable price

The "Overview" in the Iframe page below sketches out the highlights of the beginning of vernacular design in furniture. click here for a full-screen page

---

---

M Hugh Baillie Scott

In 1897 M. H. Baillie Scott was commissioned to design the dining room and drawing room for the Grand Duke of Hesse's Palace at Darmstadt. He collaborated with C. R. Ashbee, whose Guild of Handicraft carried out their designs for furni­ture and metalwork. This commission, along with the British exhibits at foreign exhibitions, did much to make known the work of English Arts and Crafts designers in Europe and was to inspire many European designers.

Baillie Scott's elaborate inlays and Ashbee's enamels enhanced the almost eccentric shapes of some of the designs and created a rich and luxurious interior, demonstrating, as did Ashbee's silver designs, that the Arts and Crafts Movement was not dedicated solely to the revival of 'cottage' crafts.

Source: Isabelle Anscombe, "British Design 1890-1940", Philippe Garner, Ed., The Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts, 1890-1940 New York: Galahad Books , pages 136-150.

Sources: M H Baillie Scott, Houses and gardens : arts and crafts interiors 1933; Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1949, pages 89-93; James D. Kornwolf, M. H. Baillie Scott and the arts and crafts movement: pioneers of modern design 1972; Nicholas Taylor, "Baillie Scott's Waldbuhl", Architectural Review ,December 1965, pages 455-58; Kevin P. Rodel and Jonathan Binzen, Arts & crafts furniture : from classic to contemporary Newtown, CT : Taunton Press, 2003; David Cathers, Gustav Stickley New York: Phaidon, 2003.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

From chapter 3:-- "The Poetics of Workmanship": "... my concern is with the treatment of materials." Our responses to materials, to our most favoured or most loathed surfaces, textures and grains, and the associations they arouse, are keys to the inner life. To use these keys fully and confidently would require a 'psychoanalysis of workman­ship' not unlike that produced by Gaston Bachelard for the elements of earth, air, fire and water. Source G. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (Boston, 1969), first published in Paris in 1998, and other writings. Especially relevant is Bachelard's concept 01 'topoanalysis — the systematic psychological study of the sites of our intimate lives' page 8; as cited by David Brett, Charles Rennie Mackintosh: The Poetics of Workmanship. London: Reaktion Books, 1992, p age 75 ). Our relationship to structures is infused with bodily expectations: -- of weight, tension, impetus and rest. The joined members of a frame, the posts of a truss, the joists, beams and purlins reproduce for us our skeletal imagining. There are secret satisfactions in good timberwork: it answers the desire for structural logic and empathetically reinforces the sense we have of ourselves as being coherent bodies. Thus the manner in which a build­ing is put together, or an interior or piece of furniture con­structed, and the many ways in which materials are made to show forth their natures, are potent elements in the meaning of the whole. For the same reason, the hiding of structure and the cloaking or disguising of materials can be full of sig­nificance. To these psychic considerations we must add the mass of assumptions and ideological rationales that had developed during the nineteenth century, and which were directly related to issues of workmanship, craft and methods of manufacture. What we observe in Mackintosh is a range of attitudes to materials and their joinings that follow a definite pattern. Source: David Brett, Charles Rennie Mackintosh: the poetics of workmanship. London: Reaktion Books, 1992, p age 75 www.reaktionbooks.co.uk

Ex: In 1897, the editor of The Studio visited Glasgow and subsequently published two glowing articles on the work Charles R Mackintosh and his associated. This was quickly picked up in Europe and the following year the Darmstadt magazine Dekorative Kunst contained an article on the Glasgow School.

Sources: M H Baillie Scott, Houses and gardens : arts and crafts interiors 1933; Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1949, pages 89-93; James D. Kornwolf, M. H. Baillie Scott and the arts and crafts movement: pioneers of modern design 1972; Nicholas Taylor, "Baillie Scott's Waldbuhl", Architectural Review ,December 1965, pages 455-58; Kevin P. Rodel and Jonathan Binzen, Arts & crafts furniture : from classic to contemporary Newtown, CT : Taunton Press, 2003; David Cathers, Gustav Stickley New York: Phaidon, 2003.

In her paper on "HARVEY ELLIS'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT IN AMERICA", (Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 33, No. 3 October 1974, page 229, Karen Graham Wade, Landmarks Preservation Commission, City of New York, argues At the time of his death in January 1904, Harvey Ellis was regarded as one of the finest American draftsmen and architectural designers of the late nineteenth century, a recognition that has been regained over the last twenty years. Ellis's reputation, however, has generally been based upon his early works in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. Of equal interest was Ellis's contribution to The Craftsman , a phase of his career which has until recently gone relatively unnoticed. This paper will focus upon those designs by Ellis appearing in the magazine that combined sophisticated adaptations of European Arts and Crafts forms with the more robust character indigenous to the Arts and Crafts movement in America. Prior to his association with The Craftsman in 1903, Ellis had shown an interest in British Arts and Crafts forms, illustrated by three architectural renderings which appeared in the Fourteenth Annual Chicago Architectural Club Exhibition and catalog of 1901. Ellis relied heavily upon the works of M. H. Baillie Scott in these drawings, as he continued to do in his designs for The Craftsman which appeared in the issues between July 1903 and January 1904. These later works also frequently incorporated elements characteristic of designs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and other protagonists of the British Arts and Crafts movement, such as Selwyn Image. Another broad source of influence for Ellis's late designs were works by members of the Vienna Secession. The Viennese designs affecting Ellis had been derived from motifs by Mackintosh and his collaborators, although the Viennese motifs were frequently more structured and symmetrical than their prototypes. During Ellis's association with The Craftsman, he was also responsible for the designs of inlaid oak furniture that was manufactured by Gustav Stickley's United Crafts. Ellis's appreciation for and understanding of European Arts and Crafts forms are evident in the subtle refinement of both the structure and ornamentation of these pieces. While many of the elements in Ellis's designs were adapted directly from European sources, he interpreted them in a uniquely American fashion. Through his skillful integration of styles, Harvey Ellis brought The Craftsman and, subsequently, the entire American Arts and Crafts movement up to a new level of excellence.

The Cotswold "School"

(Personal note: on a visit to England in 2005 I was fortunate enough to visit the Cheltenham Museum, home of the best exxhibit of the output of "Gimson and the Barnsleys". Not so fortunate is that the visit was rushed, and I did not get the quality of photos that, today, would allow me to illustrate some of the distiguishing details of these pieces. Moreover, a major disappointment is that the "hayrake" table -- my main reason for the visit -- was on exhibit in an American museum.)

GIMSON AND THE BARNSLEYS this comes from isabelle anscombe, arts and crafts style, 1991, page 114

Ernest Gimson (1864-1919) trained as an architect by "articling" under a practicising architect.

In January 1884 Gimson and his brother met William Morris. Morris provided letters of introduction for Gimson to London architects, and, as a result, in 1886 he joined J. D. Sedding's office, next door to Morris and Co.'s Oxford Street showrooms, where he remained two years. Influenced by Morris, he joined the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the Art Workers' Guild.

In London Gimson met the Barnsley brothers, who came from a Nonconformist family of Birmingham builders. Ernest Barnsley (1863-1926) worked in Sedding's office, and Sidney (1865-1926) in Norman Shaw's (need info on shaw). In October 1890, inspired by Morris and Co., Gimson and the Bamsleys along with several other associates founded Kenton and Co., named after the street around the corner from their rented workshop in Bloomsbury.

They designed furniture for production by professional cabinet-makers. Although Gimson contributed a version of a traditional English dresser in unpolished chamfered oak, following Norman Shaw, most of their pieces were influenced by the eighteenth-century originals.

In 1893 Gimson and the Barnsleys moved out of London, intending to found a craft community with the aim of revitalizing traditional craftsmanship. They settled first at Ewen, near Circencester, then moved to Pinbury House, a run-down Elizabethan manor house, where they worked in the converted stables. In 1902 they moved again. Gimson and Ernest Barnsley went into partnership at Daneway House, employing cabinet-makers to produce furniture to their designs; Peter Waals, a Dutch cabinet-maker, became their foreman. The partnership foundered in 1905 and Barnsley returned to full-time architecture, but the workshops remained busy and successful, and by 1914 were employing more than a dozen men.

[image]

Gimson made only a few early pieces of furniture himself, preferring to work closely with the craftsmen who executed his designs. A versatile designer, he used contrasting, geometric veneers as well as the solid woods favoured by Sidney Barnsley. Some of his work, such as the cabinets on stands with floral marquetry inlays, were inspired by Tudor pieces. After Gimson's death, the Dane-way workshops closed and Waals opened his own workshop near Stroud.

Sidney Barnsley kept his own separate workshop at Sapperton in Gloucestershire, where he executed his own designs. He was basically self-taught. At first, he used English oak, neither polished nor stained, then other local woods, often obtained from the village wheelwright, such as ash, elm, deal and various fruitwoods, and finally English walnut and some imported woods. As he became more skilled, the heavier pieces such as coffers gave way to lighter, more varied work, constructed with open joinery and little superficial ornamentation, although he often made distinctive use of stringing (inlaid lines of alternate dark and light woods, usually ebony and holly). His work greatly influenced younger designers such as Ambrose Heal, Gordon Russell and A. Romney Green.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Another geographical area was to give its name to a style of craftsmanship which owed its being more directly to the Arts and Crafts Movement: the Cotswold School. In 1890, Ernest Gimson, Sidney Barnsley, Alfred Powell, Mervyn Macartney, Reginald Blomfield and W. R. Lethaby formed into a company of craftsmen.

The company gave these architects a taste for furniture design, and in 1893 Gimson and Barnsley moved out of London to Ewen, near Cirencester, to look for a suitable place to found a workshop. Ernest Barnsley left his Birmingham architectural practice to join them. In 1901 they employed Peter Waals, an experienced Dutch cabinet-maker. They began a workshop at Pinbury and in March 1902 settled permanently in workshops of their own building at Sapperton.

Gimson used simply proportioned structures to show his mastery of geometric pattern and delicate inlay, using dif­ferent woods, metals or mother-of-pearl. An ar­chitect by training, Gimson's first craft work was with plasterwork and gesso, which he continued to use in his houses and also as a decorative feature on his woodwork, using simple motifs such as the English rose.

Gimson's designs were produced by his work­men at Sapperton but his intricate designs for inlaid patterns, beading or stringing show an intimate understanding of his materials. His parti­cular idiom has remained unsurpassed, but the work of his colleagues at Sapperton, Ernest and Sidney Barnsley.

The Studio naturally warmly supported the work they produced, although other critics condemned their use of dovetail joints which could be felt when one sat down upon a chair, or, as in a review in The Builder of a bow-fronted oak dresser exhibited by Sidney Barnsley in 1899:

. . . the turn-buttons to the small top cupboards look like the work of a savage; the wooden handles to the lower doors .. . are actually nailed on at one end, the rough nail head showing at the top. This is not only not artistic, it is not even good taste.

The work of Norman Shaw, who in­troduced the Queen Anne style at Bedford Park, links between the Gothicism of early William Morris and the craftsman tradition of the Cotswoldian, Ernest Gimson.

The work of the Cotswold School -- which influenced Ambrose Heal and Gordon Russell -- demonstrates the continuance of the Arts an Crafts antipathy to the machine. As Gordon Russell noted in his autobiography, when considering art education, no schools existed which recognized the need for particular training for machine production. The honesty of materials -- often characterized as the "truth to materials" ethic -- and production and their solid wardrobes and dressers all show beautiful workmanship in the treatment of the wood, allowing the material to stand alone, or in contrast with different inlaid woods. Gimson himself never executed his designs, except some turned ash chairs; the work was carried out by the various craftsmen.

Sources: M H Baillie Scott, Houses and gardens : arts and crafts interiors 1933; Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1949, pages 89-93; James D. Kornwolf, M. H. Baillie Scott and the arts and crafts movement: pioneers of modern design 1972; Nicholas Taylor, "Baillie Scott's Waldbuhl", Architectural Review ,December 1965, pages 455-58; Kevin P. Rodel and Jonathan Binzen, Arts & crafts furniture : from classic to contemporary Newtown, CT : Taunton Press, 2003; David Cathers, Gustav Stickley New York: Phaidon, 2003.

Sources: Wickipedia bio

Sources: M H Baillie Scott, Houses and gardens : arts and crafts interiors 1933; Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1949, pages 89-93; James D. Kornwolf, M. H. Baillie Scott and the Arts and Crafts Movement: Pioneers of Modern Design 1972; Nicholas Taylor, "Baillie Scott's Waldbuhl", Architectural Review ,December 1965, pages 455-58; Kevin P. Rodel and Jonathan Binzen, Arts & crafts furniture : from classic to contemporary Newtown, CT : Taunton Press, 2003; David Cathers, Gustav Stickley New York: Phaidon, 2003.

Sources: Hermann Muthesius, The English House, in 3 vols, ed with intro by Dennis Sharp; trans by Janet Seligman and Stewart Spencer London: Frances Lincoln, 1905-1906; reprinted, 2007; Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of modern design from William Morris to Walter Gropius New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1949; Gillian Naylor, The arts and crafts movement: a study of its sources, ideals, and influence on design theory Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971; ; Isabelle Anscombe and Charlotte Gere, Arts & crafts in Britain and America‎ New York: Rizzoli, 1978; Mary Greensted, Gimson and the Barnsleys: "wonderful furniture of a commonplace kind" New York: Van Nostrand, 1980; Lionel Lambourne, Utopian craftsmen: the arts and crafts movement from the Cotswolds to Chicago Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, 1980 ; Eileen Boris , Art and labor: Ruskin, Morris, and the craftsman ideal in America‎ Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986 Isabelle Anscomb, Arts and Crafts Style, London: Phaidon, 1991; Mary Greensted, The arts and crafts movement in the Cotswolds Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1993; Kitty Turgeon and Robert Rust, The Arts and Crafts Home‎ New York: Michael Friedman, 1998 ; Wendy Hitchmough,, The Arts & Crafts lifestyle and design‎ New York: Watson-Guptil, 2000 ; David Cathers, Gustav Stickley, NY: Phaidon, 2003; ;