It’s quite hypnotizing when a trend starts and seems to be here to stay; and when it really does it may graduate to a “movement”.
If the trend seems so strong, then the movement really feels like it will stay forever. The difference between these two may be that a trend is based on an ephemeral necessity, while a movement is a response to certain social and political circumstances. Some art movements are there as much as they need to be for their own cause and they can last for as long as the revolutionary fact that originated them does.
The Industrial Revolution took place and developed for about 80 years. In that time, the actual counter proposal had to be logically rooted in the arts and crafts, growing from trend to movement in its own right: Machines replace humans until humans replace machines again, and so on. It’s as if history itself would breathe, inhaling revolutions and exhaling art movements. It’s a constant balance of reform for which it shouldn’t be surprising that certain techniques used 100 years ago come back and lead in the present time; but the beautiful fact about this is that it’s always totally surprising, because we don’t have such a perspective while things are happening.
While Arts & Crafts marked its place as a response to the Industrial Revolution, our own present time is kind of going through an Arts & Crafts revival after the digital revolution from the 90’s and 2000’s. This is especially true in the graphic design and decorative fields, which are in a way being re-discovered as crafts themselves or even experienced as such for the first time by many people. At Weylin, with an evolutionary attitude, we took care of hosting a master piece by William Morris, paying tribute to craftsmanship and once again doing as much as we can to learn where we come from, in order to know where we’re going. They say this pattern was specifically requested to him by Queen Victoria herself.
You can enjoy more pictures of this beautifully reconstructed artwork on Spaces.
Enjoy!
The Weylin Team
Drawing and silk-screening by Bradbury & Bradbury Art Wallpaper.