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.


About the author:
Arthur Clutton-Brock was a distinguished essayist and journalist of the turn of the 18th and the 19th century but he was also an art critic. Thanks to his multiple talents, he analysed the works of poets such as Shelley in Shelley: The Man and the Poet but also of well-known painters such as William Morris in William Morris: His Works and Influence.