Arts and Crafts movement, 1850-1900

Arts and Crafts movement, English aesthetic movement of the second half of the 19th century that represented the beginning of a new appreciation of the decorative arts throughout Europe.

By 1860 a vocal minority had become profoundly disturbed by the level to which style, craftsmanship, and public taste had sunk in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and its mass-produced and banal decorative arts.

Among them was the English reformer, poet, and designer William Morris, who, in 1861, founded a firm of interior decorators and manufacturers - Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company (after 1875, Morris and Company) - dedicated to recapturing the spirit and quality of medieval craftsmanship.

William Morris (1834-1896) | English textile designer

Frank Markham Skipworth | Portrait /Genre painter

Frank Markham Skipworth (1854 in Castor, Lincolnshire - 1929 in London) was an British portrait painter.

He painted also genre and historical subjects.

He studied for two years at the Lincoln School of Art, then under Sir Edward John Poynter (1836-1919) at the Royal Academy Schools for three years and became a pupil of William-Adolphe Bouguereau in Paris. | Source: © Wikipedia

Léon Perrault | Genre / Academic painter

Painter of genre, history, religion and portrait stands in peril of not being remembered as distinctively as his successes might merit.

For our part, we may narrow this great artist’s claims at once by rejecting his religious painting, and we may be inclined to go on and deny him the title of historical painter, so that, although we shall have paintings of religious subjects and of historical subjects to consider, we shall in truth be considering them as work of a painter of genre and portrait.

Maxfield Parrish | Fantasy / Romantic painter

Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966)° was an American painter* and illustrator, active in the first half of the 20th century.

Parrish is best known for his depictions of fantasy landscapes populated by attractive young women.

For biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by Parrish see:

• Maxfield Parrish | Golden Age painter / Illustrator ⥅
• Maxfield Parrish | Romantic Painter / Illustrator ⥅

Mary Alayne Thomas | Surrealist Fantasy painter

Raised by two full time artists in Santa Fe New Mexico, Mary Thomas has had a strong desire to create since childhood. Finding constant inspiration from her memories of New Mexico, as well as from the beauty of her current home in Portland Oregon, her paintings continually attempt to capture those magic ephemeral moments we all experience, both real and imagined.

Having painted all of her life, she was initially taken with a love for the luminosity and versatility of watercolor and has since progressed to work with encaustic. She best describes her work as "a delicacy and softness that emanates from the layering of art forms within the transparent surface".