© 2004 by Design History Society
The Ethics of Making
Craft and English Sculptural Aesthetics c. 1851–1900
Henry Moore Institute
The emergence in Britain in the 1880s of a new sculptural aesthetic that incorporated ornament, colour and craft-based modes of production signalled a radical departure from the austere, controlled appearance of the neoclassical sculptures that dominated the first half of the nineteenth century. Yet the decorative character of the New Sculpture and its intersections with debates associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement have also complicated its position in the history of sculpture. It is more readily absorbed into the discourse defined by craft reform than treated as a distinct sculptural phenomenon. This paper explores the divergence in visual and practical approaches that developed in sculpture-making between the first and second halves of the nineteenth century, and suggests that the deliberate fusion between decorative and sculptural qualities that emerged in the 1880s signalled not so much an attempt to align sculpture with craft, decoration and design, as a desire to reformulate the ways that sculptural aesthetics could be expressed and interpreted.
Key Words: Arts and Crafts Movement—Ford, Edward Onslow—Gibson, John—Great Exhibition—nineteenth century—sculpture