Love your videos. Can't thank you enough. I've always been interested in ID, but you make it fascinating

Those videos are really helping me out for my ID History exams. They really help me to view things in a different way 😁

I absolutely love the Arts and Crafts aesthetic and ideals. Yet I struggle with the practicalities of its application. You did a great job of articulating the tensions and at times down right hypocrisy of the movement. Bravo!

You embody the principles of design--given how you present yourself: well-dressed, purposeful, refined, articulate, and well-crafted. Bravo!

I find your presenting style great, engaging, very interesting with a touch of humour too. The videos I’ve watched are certainly helping me with my uni essay 👍🏻 thanks

This course is amazing , I am a design students ... obviously self-thaugh and the ID aproach is a paradigm change for the classical art movement history. I think that I will watch your course twice !

I am really inspired by the idealism behind the arts and crafts movement. Thanks for introducing me to it. I will certainly be reading more of Ruskin's writings.

I am in England and something of a (very, very mature) student of the English A&C movement. Such that our barn conversion has many of the aesthetics associated with that movement - lots of “fumed” quartersawn oak in doors, door surrounds, window reveals, picture rails, skirting boards etc. plus I make furniture which has all got influences from Morris, Voysey etc. It was a movement with good intentions but bound to fail. Morris was an ardent socialist in a way that I think would have had him vilified in the US. He did want better conditions for his workers, building communities which still exist today. He wanted the human touch in everything but did not forbid the use of machines. It was, simplistically, a case of heavy work by machine; fine work by hand. But, the pieces produced were out of the financial reach of the people who made them. You had to be rich to afford them whilst the poor majority could only afford mass-produced items. Shops like Liberty were a Mecca for this movement (still is to a degree) but only the rich could pay those prices. If anyone comes to England (really the south east), and is keen to go to places and get immersed in all the different versions and influences of the A&C movement, I would be happy to offer some advise on where to go and what to see. It is, to me, both inspiring and disappointing.

I am from Argentina, southamerica, thanks my mother she sent me studie english wen a i was young, its not so good but enough to understand you. great class, i love it.

Im glad your classes popped up in my feed somehow. I've been slowly devouring them. Your presentation is smooth. You do very well for "an old man" without a "teleprompter"!

Interesting trivia - I recently heard a lecture that the vivid green colors in William Morris’ wallpapers were derived from an arsenic component . Morris’s himself was a principal owner of one of the world’s largest arsenic mines. People were actually dying from exposure to these papers.

Thank you so very much for this lecture! As an archaeologist, I love, love, love the material culture from the arts and crafts movement, especially the jewelry. I especially love the MacKintosh style jewelry, which I collect and wear daily. I spend summers in Scotland, where I go to antique fairs and spend way too much time drooling over the Glasgow School collection at Kelvingrove. It’s like a sacred space to me and it never gets old. I really appreciate your perspective on MacKintosh & co bc I was always confused about their placement in arts & crafts vs art nouveau. You are a great teacher, so thanks again for sharing. You are funny and I appreciate you.

What a wonderful lecture. Thank you.

Very good and educational video. Thank you!

Fantastic. Just a few days ago Facebook reminded me of a Morris passage I posted when I was reading his stuff about a decade ago. As I'm sure you might agree, the criticisms against manufactury made then are still incredibly important even today. I also find the answers they gave to be ineffectual and perhaps not applicable to today's world, but the problem itself hasn't gone away, and needs re-examination. Especially when futurists have sometimes stated that as more becomes manufactured, handmade will become the new luxury. (I don't see this happening). As for it's influence on industrial design, it definitely has some influence on future movements. You see some in the natural aspects of modern design, and of the functionalism that lead to mid century modern, withe the focus on the materials, and in some arts and crafts mentalities, the focus on the materials for their own beauty over ornate decoration. The thing with decorative arts is that there is a progression, and though arts and crafts is a rejection of manufactury to some degree, it also is an important part its decorative idiom and what it pushed forward.

Absolutely enthralled with this series!

I love your lectures, the presentation is informative with true enthusiasm; it is obvious how much you love the subject. I would have loved to hear/watch your lecture on the Bauhaus movement.

Always informative and interesting presentations. Thanks for posting these lectures!

About Glasgow/Vienna: Its not just the Aesthetics that are forward looking but also the Socialist underpinnings, despite the work being expensive. That can't be decoupled from motivations of the designers and artisans, otherwise the Bauhaus wouldn't have cared to build on the idea (regardless of mass manufacturing). Their mindset speaks (and offers) a lot to the dissatisfaction of our own age. Just as the Shakers do.

I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD BE THIS INTRSTED IN FURNITURE DESGIN/CRAFT/ART :O I love it! Great presentation!

Thank you for sharing you knowledge! Was fun watching this. :)

Just great, thank you

Fantastic lecture and candid summary.

Wow i have a History of ID exam tomorrow and i just find this channel? Oh well. I'll be watching all your videos anyways :)

Keep it up Mr. Bird...man. Great pictures, quotes, and explanations. I've got a book on design by DK and it does not do justice to the topics. Have you ever thought about turning this class into a book?

Enjoyable history. Interesting political viewpoint of industrialization; slavery and glass beads with overproduction. The cigarette case reminds me of "the kiss", Klimt, which wiener society would make sense to connect. Funny outtakes at end.

Surprised you did not cover Greene and Greene, the Hall brothers and their temples to the Arts and Crafts movement: ultimate bungalows - the Gamble, Blacker and Thorsen House.

This is wonderful! Thank you for sharing. Would you consider adding some links to primary sources and specific case studies in your description?

Thank you for the lecture, Mathew! I personally don't agree with a lot of the statements of this movement, so I kind of agree with your perception specially at the end of the video. The thing is that I don't feel comfortable with the system behind our products, and the abuse it takes the products to get them to our hands. So, the fact that this autors state that the system can't be changed and that there are ONLY TWO options (either cheap products but with a lot of abuse behind them or "ethical" products but expensive) sounds wrong and even wicked to me in a way of perpetuating the same system. The Arts and Crafts Movement, in my opinion, is still relevant these days but in the wrong way. This campaing and way of thinking called "educating the consumer" is a lie to me, because in reality it states that the responsability of abuse behind our products relies "directly and only" on us, the consumers, because of choosing "wrong". I'm not saying we should not be aware of how our products are made, but that the real fight is not on our consumption choices but in demanding real regulation to corporates and real benefits to the ones who make our products (and our world!) reality; as well as demanding our rights as consumers, among others, to have products that can grow with us and not be obsolete in the short term, and to condemn those enterprises that simulate these rights. Anyway, thank you for sharing your perspective, for not exclusively looking at this movement fot it's style and for openning the conversation! Greetings from Mexico!