Egypt
Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world.
The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
Lee Lawrie
Lee Oscar Lawrie was one of the United States foremost architectural sculptors and a key figure in the American art scene preceding World War II. Over his long career of more than 300 commissions Lawries style evolved through Modern Gothic, to Beaux-Arts, Classicism and he created a frieze on the Nebraska State Capitol building in Lincoln, including a portrayal of the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. He created some of the sculpture and his most prominent work. Lawries work is associated with some of the United States most noted buildings of the first half of the twentieth century and his stylistic approach evolved with building styles that ranged from Beaux-Arts to neo-Gothic to Art Deco. He completed numerous pieces in Washington, D. C. Lee Lawrie was born in Rixdorf, Germany, in 1877 and immigrated to the United States in 1882 as a child with his family. It was there, at the age of 14, that he working for the sculptor Richard Henry Park. At the age of 15, in 1892 Lawrie worked as an assistant to many of the sculptors in Chicago, following the completion of that work, Lawrie went East, where he became an assistant to William Ordway Partridge.
During the next decade, he worked with other established sculptors, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Philip Martiny, Alexander Phimister Proctor, John William Kitson, Lawrie received a bachelors degree in fine arts from Yale University in 1910. He was an instructor in Yales School of Fine Arts from 1908 to 1919, Lawries collaborations with Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Goodhue brought him to the forefront of architectural sculptors in the United States. After the breakup of the Cram, Goodhue firm in 1914 and he next worked with Goodhue’s successors. Lawrie sculpted numerous bas reliefs for El Fureidis, an estate in Montecito, the bas reliefs depict the Arthurian Legends and remain intact at the estate today. The Nebraska State Capitol and the Los Angeles Public Library both feature extensive sculptural programs integrated with the surface, spatial grammar, and social function of the building, Lawries collaborations with Goodhue are arguably the most highly developed example of architectural sculpture in American architectural history.
Lawrie served as a consultant to the 1933-34 Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago and he was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Academy of Design, and the Architectural League of New York. Commission of Fine Arts in Washington, DC from 1933 to 1937 and again from 1945 to 1950, it oversees federal public works, by November 1931 Hood said, There has been entirely too much talk about the collaboration of architect and sculptor. He relegated Lawrie to the role of a decorator, at its unveiling, some critics were reminded of Benito Mussolini, while James Montgomery Flagg suggested that it looked as Mussolini thought he looked. The international character of Streamline Moderne, embraced by Fascism as well as corporate democracy, featured above the entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza and axially behind the golden Prometheus, Lawries Wisdom is one of the most visible works of art in the complex. An Art Deco piece, it echoes the statements of power shown in Atlas, allegorical relief panels called Courage and Wisdom over the entry doors to United States Senate chamber, Washington, D. C. C.
Friezes for the Ramsey County Courthouse in Saint Paul, Minnesota Whatsoever a Man Soweth, fifth issue of the long running Society of Medalists. C, hubbard Bell Grossman Pillot Memorial gravestone
Iran
Iran, known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars and thinkers.
During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris and Lurs.
Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church (Manhattan)
On October 31,2016, the St. Bartholomews Church and Community House complex was designated a National Historic Landmark. The congregations first location was opened for service in January 1835, in a church at the corner of Great Jones Street. The portal was paid for by the family of Cornelius Vanderbilt II as a memorial, Vanderbilts father, the current church was erected in 1916–17. The original freely handled and simplified Byzantine Revival design by Bertram Goodhue was called a jewel in a setting by Christine Smith in 1988. They inserted the much discussed dome, tile-patterned on the exterior and with a polychrome Hispano-Moresque interior dome, completed in 1930, the church contains stained-glass windows and mosaics by Hildreth Meiere, and a marble baptismal font by the Danish follower of Canova, Bertel Thorvaldsen. St. Bartholomews, completed by 1930 at a cost of $5,400,000, is one of the citys landmarks, for long one of New Yorks wealthiest parishes, St. Barts is known for a wide range of programs.
It draws parishioners from all areas of New York City and surroundings and it is the final resting place for actresses Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, and their mother Mary Gish. Saint Bartholomews Church and Community House was designated a landmark by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1967, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed this decision in 1990, and the U. S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in 1991. It was a victory for landmark preservation, St. Bartholomews is noted for its pipe organ, the largest in New York and one of the ten largest in the world. One of the churchs former choir-directors was the famous conductor Leopold Stokowski, another of the churchs music directors was Harold Friedell, the well-known composer and Juilliard educator. The churchs choir has achieved distinction under the direction of such as William Trafka. The Chorister Program has had success in bringing together children ages 6–18 to sing in the church, in the 1981 movie Arthur, Arthurs wedding with Susan Johnson was to take place at St.
Barts. The infamous wedding scene in the remake of the film was filmed at St. Barts in July 2010. In the 2010 film Salt, the Russian President is supposedly killed in the church while delivering a eulogy at the funeral of the late American Vice President, in the television series Mad Men, Margaret Sterling, the daughter of Roger Sterling, plans to marry in the church. Bartholomews Church, The New York Times,8 October 2006, official website Architectural images of St. Barts
Manhattan
Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government.
The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City.
In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776.
The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
Connecticut
Connecticut is the southernmost state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Connecticut is often grouped along with New York and New Jersey as the Tri-State Area and it is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capital city is Hartford, and its most populous city is Bridgeport, the state is named for the Connecticut River, a major U. S. river that approximately bisects the state. The word Connecticut is derived from various anglicized spellings of an Algonquian word for long tidal river, Connecticut is the third smallest state by area, the 29th most populous, and the fourth most densely populated of the 50 United States. It is known as the Constitution State, the Nutmeg State, the Provisions State, and it was influential in the development of the federal government of the United States. Connecticuts center of population is in Cheshire, New Haven County, Connecticuts first European settlers were Dutch.
They established a small, short-lived settlement in present-day Hartford at the confluence of the Park, half of Connecticut was a part of the Dutch colony New Netherland, which included much of the land between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers. The first major settlements were established in the 1630s by England, the Connecticut and New Haven Colonies established documents of Fundamental Orders, considered the first constitutions in North America. In 1662, the three colonies were merged under a charter, making Connecticut a crown colony. This colony was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution, the Connecticut River, Thames River, and ports along the Long Island Sound have given Connecticut a strong maritime tradition which continues today. The state has a history of hosting the financial services industry, including insurance companies in Hartford. As of the 2010 Census, Connecticut features the highest per-capita income, Human Development Index, and median household income in the United States.
Landmarks and Cities of Connecticut Connecticut is bordered on the south by Long Island Sound, on the west by New York, on the north by Massachusetts, and on the east by Rhode Island. The state capital and third largest city is Hartford, and other cities and towns include Bridgeport, New Haven, Waterbury, Danbury, New Britain, Greenwich. Connecticut is slightly larger than the country of Montenegro, there are 169 incorporated towns in Connecticut. The highest peak in Connecticut is Bear Mountain in Salisbury in the northwest corner of the state, the highest point is just east of where Connecticut and New York meet, on the southern slope of Mount Frissell, whose peak lies nearby in Massachusetts. At the opposite extreme, many of the towns have areas that are less than 20 feet above sea level. Connecticut has a maritime history and a reputation based on that history—yet the state has no direct oceanfront
Park Avenue
Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the borough of Manhattan, and is a wide one-way pair in the Bronx. For most of the length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west. Park Avenues entire length was formerly called Fourth Avenue, the title applies to the section between the Bowery and 14th Street. Meanwhile, the section between 14th and 17th Street is called Union Square East, and between 17th and 32nd Streets, the name Park Avenue South is used, in the Bronx, Park Avenue runs in several segments between the Major Deegan Expressway and Fordham Road. Park Avenue was originally known as Fourth Avenue and carried the tracks of the New York, the railroad originally ran through an open cut through Murray Hill, which was covered with grates and grass between 34th and 40th Street in the early 1850s. A section of park was renamed Park Avenue in 1860. When Grand Central Depot was opened in the 1870s, the tracks between 56th and 93rd Streets were sunk out of sight and, in 1888, Park Avenue was extended to north of Grand Central.
In 1936 the elevated Park Avenue Viaduct was built around the station to allow traffic to pass unimpeded. In October 1937, a part of the Murray Hill Tunnel was reopened for road traffic, efforts to promote a Grand Park Avenue Expressway to Grand Concourse in the Bronx were unavailing. A tradition was introduced in 1945 as a memorial to American soldiers killed in action, on May 5,1959, the New York City Council voted 20–1 to change the name of Fourth Avenue between 17th and 32nd Streets to Park Avenue South. In 1963, the Pan Am Building, straddling Park Avenue atop Grand Central Terminal, was built between the automotive viaducts, on March 12,2014, two apartment buildings near 116th Street,1644 and 1646 Park Avenue, were destroyed in a gas explosion. Eight people were killed and many others were injured, the road that becomes Park Avenue originates as the Bowery. From Cooper Square at 8th Street to Union Square at 14th Street, it is known as Fourth Avenue, at 14th Street, it turns slightly northeast to align with other avenues drawn up in the Commissioners Plan of 1811.
From 17th Street to 32nd Street, it is known as Park Avenue South, above 32nd Street, for the remainder of its distance, it is known as Park Avenue, a 140-foot-wide boulevard. Between 33rd Street and 40th Street, the northbound lane descends into the Murray Hill Tunnel. The bridge, one of two structures in Manhattan known as the Park Avenue Viaduct, returns to level at 46th Street after going through the Helmsley Building. The IRT Lexington Avenue Line runs under this portion of the street, once the line reaches Grand Central – 42nd Street, it shifts east to Lexington Avenue. From 47th to 97th Streets, Metro-North Railroad tracks run in a tunnel underneath Park Avenue, in the 1920s the portion of Park Avenue from Grand Central Terminal to 96th Street saw extensive apartment building construction
Mission Revival architecture
It evolved into and was subsumed by the more articulated Spanish Colonial Revival Style, established in 1915 at the Panama–California Exposition. All of the 21 Franciscan Alta California missions, including their chapels and support structures and these commonalities arose because the Franciscan missionaries all came from the same places of previous service in Spain and colonial Mexico City in New Spain. The New Spain religious buildings the founding Franciscan saw and emulated were of the Spanish Colonial style, the limited availability and variety of building materials besides adobe near mission sites or imported to Alta California limited design options. Finally, the missionaries and their indigenous Californian workforce had minimal construction skills, exterior walls were coated with white plaster, which with wide side eaves shielded the adobe brick walls from rain. Revival These architectural elements were replicated, in varying degrees, the Spanish Mission Style and its associated Spanish Colonial Revival Style became internationally influential.
Examples can be found throughout Australia and New Zealand where the California Bungalow style was prevalent, in Central and South America its influence is less discernible as the Spanish Colonial Style had, in effect not been departed from, so it is arguable that there wasnt a revival. The Mission Inn in Southern California is one of the largest extant Mission Revival Style buildings in the United States, located in Riverside, it has been restored, with tours of the styles expression. Other structures designed in the Mission Revival Style include, The Hotel Castañeda, ponce De Leon Hotel in St. Four Roses Distillery, in Lawrenceburg, francis Lederer estate and residence, in West Hills, Los Angeles, completed 1936 Iao Theater, in Wailuku, Maui—Hawaii, built in 1928. Kelso Depot, in Mojave Desert—Mojave National Preserve, completed in 1923 for Union Pacific Railroad, Lederer Stables—Canoga Mission Gallery, in West Hills, Los Angeles, completed in 1936 Los Angeles Herald-Examiner Building, Julia Morgan, Downtown Los Angeles,1915.
Texas A&M University–Kingsville, in Kingsville, founded in 1925 with new construction reflecting the Mission Revival style, Union Station, in San Diego, completed in 1915. Valdosta State Universitys Main Campus in Valdosta, Georgia Villa Rockledge, in Laguna Beach, completed in 1935 Louis P. best Residence and Auto House, Clausen & Clausen, Iowa, constructed 1909–1910. Several buildings at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey, santa Fe Coast Lines Depots, Los Angeles Division. Laguna Beach, CA, American National Research Institute, Karen J. Californias Mission Revival. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA
Harvard University
Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, james Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College, Harvards $34.5 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university, the nominal cost of attendance is high, but the Universitys large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages. Harvards alumni include eight U. S. presidents, several heads of state,62 living billionaires,359 Rhodes Scholars. To date, some 130 Nobel laureates,18 Fields Medalists, Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
In 1638, it obtained British North Americas first known printing press, in 1639 it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school £779 and his scholars library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650 and it offered a classic curriculum on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge—but conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational. The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701, in 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, in 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College.
Agassizs approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans participation in the Divine Nature, agassizs perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on an archetype for his evidence. Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, during the 20th century, Harvards international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the universitys scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new schools were begun and the undergraduate College expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900.
In the early 20th century, the student body was predominately old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, by the 1970s it was much more diversified
James Renwick Jr.
James Renwick Jr. was an American architect in the 19th century. The Encyclopedia of American Architecture calls him one of the most successful American architects of his time, Renwick was born into a wealthy and well-educated family. His mother, Margaret Brevoort, was from a wealthy and socially prominent New York family and his father, James Renwick, was an engineer and professor of natural philosophy at Columbia College, now Columbia University. His two brothers were engineers, Renwick is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and father. Renwick was not formally trained as an architect and he learned the skills from his father. He studied engineering at Columbia, entering at age twelve and graduating in 1836 and he received an M. A. three years later. In 1846 Renwick won the competition for the design of the Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington and it was a major influence in the Gothic revival in the United States. In 1849, Renwick designed the Free Academy Building, New York City, at Lexington Avenue and it was one of the first Gothic Revival college buildings on the East Coast.
Renwick went on to design what is considered his finest achievement and he was chosen as architect for the cathedral in 1853, construction began in 1858, and the cathedral opened in May 1879. The cathedral is the most ambitious essay in Gothic that the revival of the produced and is a mixture of German, French. Another of the prominent buildings Renwick designed was the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in the Second Empire style, Renwick is revered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, as the architect who designed Ascension Memorial Church, whose cornerstone was laid in October 1869. Renwick designed the first chapter house of St. Anthony Hall/Delta Psi, in 1879, The New York Tribune called it French Renaissance, but the stumpy pilasters and blocky detailing suggest the Neo-Grec style near the end of its popularity. In 1899 the fraternity moved to a new house on Riverside Drive. At that time a newspaper account described it as a perfect Bijou of tasteful decoration, Renwick was supervising architect for the Commission of Charities and Correction.
A small group of Renwicks architectural drawings and papers are held by the Avery Architectural, Renwick was the designer of the bell tower of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, Florida. The work was commissioned by Standard Oil partner Henry M. Flagler who was building luxury hotels in the city at the time. Renwick and his wife Anna Aspinwall lived and owned property in the area of St. Augustine on Anastasia Island. In the Spring of 1890, Renwick listened to Franklin W. Smith deliver a speech to support for his Design
Arts and Crafts movement
It stood for traditional craftsmanship using simple forms, and often used medieval, romantic, or folk styles of decoration. It advocated economic and social reform and was essentially anti-industrial and it had a strong influence on the arts in Europe until it was displaced by Modernism in the 1930s, and its influence continued among craft makers and town planners long afterwards. It was inspired by the ideas of architect Augustus Pugin, writer John Ruskin, the movement developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles, and spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and North America. It was largely a reaction against the perceived impoverished state of the arts at the time. The Arts and Crafts style emerged from the attempt to reform design, but it was as much a movement of social reform as design reform and its leading practitioners did not separate the two. The art historian Nikolaus Pevsner has said that exhibits in the Great Exhibition showed ignorance of basic need in creating patterns.
Owen Jones, for example, declared that Ornament, fiona MacCarthy says that unlike zealots like Gandhi, William Morris had no practical objections to the use of machinery per se so long as the machines produced the quality he needed. Morriss followers had differing views or changed their minds over time. C. R. Ashbee, for example, a figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement. At the time of his Guild of Handicraft, initiated in 1888, he said, We do not reject the machine, but we would desire to see it mastered. Morris insisted that the artist should be a working by hand and advocated a society of free craftspeople. Because craftsmen took pleasure in their work, he wrote, the Middle Ages was a period of greatness in the art of the common people. The treasures in our museums now are only the common used in households of that age. Medieval art was the model for much Arts and Crafts design and medieval life, before capitalism, the founders of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society did not insist that the designer should be the maker.
Peter Floud, writing in the 1950s, said that The founders of the Society, never executed their own designs, but invariably turned them over to commercial firms. The Arts and Crafts Movement was associated with socialist ideas in the persons of Morris, T. J. Cobden Sanderson, Walter Crane, Ashbee, in the early 1880s Morris was spending more of his time on socialist propaganda than on designing and making. Ashbee established a community of craftsmen, the Guild of Handicraft, in east London and those adherents who were not socialists, for example, Alfred Hoare Powell, advocated a more humane and personal relationship between employer and employee. Lewis Foreman Day, a successful and influential Arts and Crafts designer, was not a socialist either
