Morris is studying theology at Oxford University. There, he was influenced by Ruskin's design ideas. Ruskin is a writer and critic. He propagated his ideas through eloquent and influential preaching. While opposing industrialization, Ruskin put forward some principles of architecture and product design, such as "learning from nature and being faithful to traditional materials". These ideas put Morris on the road of art and design. After traveling in France, Morris became interested in Gothic architecture, so he entered an architect's office to study architecture and began his design career.
Morris's first attempt at a new design concept was to decorate his newly-married house "Red House". In order to buy daily necessities for the newly married family, he was shocked to find that the small shop could not buy a piece of furniture and other daily necessities that satisfied him. With the cooperation of several like-minded friends, he designed and made household articles according to his own standards. In the design process, he combined stylized natural patterns, handicraft production, medieval moral and social concepts and visual simplicity. As for the relationship between form, or decoration and function, according to Morris, decoration should emphasize form and function, not cover them up.
After the "Red House" was completed, Morris and several friends set up their own office-"Morris Office" to design products and organize production. This is the beginning of many arts and crafts design guilds in Britain in the second half of the19th century. Although Morris has designed furniture with others, he is mainly a graphic designer, that is, engaged in the design of fabrics, wallpaper, tiles, carpets, colored mosaic glass and so on. In addition, he has also made outstanding achievements in printing and book binding design. He pays special attention to the layout, emphasizing the decoration of the layout, and usually adopts a symmetrical structure to form a rigorous, simple and solemn style. Most of his designs are based on plants, which are quite natural and reflect a medieval pastoral flavor. This is the concrete embodiment of Ruskin's thought of "learning from nature", which has a certain influence on the Art Nouveau movement that later swept Europe. As the ideological leader of the design innovation movement, Ruskin blamed the shoddy products on mechanical mass production, so he strongly criticized industry and its products. Like Ruskin, Morris believes that the product problems are related to machine production. However, Morris is not as afraid and disgusted with machines as Ruskin. He believes that the division of labor has split the consistency of work, resulting in irresponsible decoration. Although Morris has a backward side in dealing with mechanization and large-scale industrial production, he has made the ideal of previous design reform theorists come true. More importantly, he is not limited to aesthetic taste, but regards design as a part of a broader social problem. Because he transcends the category of "aesthetics", he can come into contact with those more important problems that have existed for a long time. Therefore, in a sense, he is a great pioneer of modern design.
After 19 Putin in 1930s and 40s and 19 Ruskin in 1950s, 19 william morris in 1970s and 1980s. Morris believes that the reformist tradition is extremely important to modernism. While fiercely adhering to the position of anti-chemical industry ("machine production is evil as a whole"), he is also an anti-historian in some important aspects. He emphasized the processing method of handicraft industry in the Middle Ages, not the artistic style in the Middle Ages. For Morris, art is just "the joy expressed by people in their labor", and those "dreams of ancient Greece and Italy that only a few people claim to understand or move" are actually nothing. In fact, Morris did not escape to the past. On the contrary, he chose to face the world. He was also an important figure of early socialism in England, and he called for works of art to "come from and serve the people". In other words, he not only advocated restoring the dignity of workers and the beauty of handicrafts, but also advocated giving the whole working class the right to vote. He is also passionate about creating a good design, careful implementation and non-historical environment for the whole community. Morris's idea of saving mankind through a new architectural model and an applied technology and art is not only a verbal proposal-here refers to the 35 famous lectures given by Morris in 1877~ 1894, but also a practical action: it was carefully designed and designed by philip webb in 1859. And most importantly, the company he founded in 186 1-Maurice Marshall Faulkner Arts and Crafts Company for Painting, Sculpture, Furniture and Metal Products, was a turning point in the British Arts and Crafts Movement.
However, there is an inevitable contradiction in Morris's theory. Despite many progressive ideas, he stubbornly stuck to an outdated mode of production. When he painfully realized that handmade products were very expensive, in fact, his exquisitely processed products were mainly for the "luxury life of rich pigs", as he himself reviled. Morris loved and hated the industrial society he hated, so he took an obvious and decisive step: accepting machines, learning the production methods of machines, and then guiding machines to produce things that are not so fake and vulgar, but things that are carefully designed, carefully made and made with solid materials in a modern way, just like those traditional handicrafts. Of course, even Morris himself failed to take this step-the actual step took place in Germany at the turn of the century. Taking him as a precedent, this result was achieved. His enthusiasm and his socialist fantasy of art, like a bridge to a better world, have become a milestone in the modern art movement.