Century of revolutions

Nineteenth century was a century of revolutions. Bourgeois revolutions seized almost all European countries, industrial revolution brought new technologies and popularized machinery production all over the world. Industrial revolution caused great technological, socioeconomic and cultural change in the economy by the replacement of manual labor by machinery manufacture. Industrial revolution started from the invention of steam power and powered machinery in England. New technologies and devices resulted big social resonance in the end of 18th – beginning of 19th century. Many aspects of human life were changed and many people had major changes in their working places, as a lot of working positions were replaced by the machines. Journeymen regarded machinery industry as a serous threat to their earnings. Workshops artisans, so loudly protesting against the implementation of machinery workforce quickly became professional machine operators and their salaries were equal to the salaries to the qualified professionals. Journeymen and other members of the society predicted the decline of art, ejected by heartless machines. They predicted degradation of culture, art and decline of design.
There are two basically different approaches, which perform the attitude of historians to the consequences of industry mechanization for art and design.
It’s necessary to mention, that despite all advantages and positive points of mechanization and industrial revolution it has changed the division of forces on the job market, same as art-labor division. The general mass of artistic skills appliance declined during Victorian epoch. New opportunities and new challenges appeared in the field of design. They required artistic approach and new solutions, but, unfortunately the referred only to small percent of professionals. At the same time general level of art-labor balance was displaced to the side of labor and big number of journeymen had to look for jobs which required no artistic skill and, actually, required nothing but mechanical repeated actions. Some historians treat such changes in the structure of society as crises and call the situation in Britain as the Victorian design crises. All the industrial branches were transformed by the implementation of new technologies and machines replaced human labor. Operating machines didn’t require human artistic skills and it caused much concerns in the minds of people, who predicted the decline of art and design, because “their system of art training for industry was grossly deficient and had led to bad design” (Design history, 174).
Traditional patrimonial apprenticeship system consisted of craft groups where workers had much control not only on the production and working conditions, but also on wages, prices for their goods and their. Professional skills and work secretes were passed from generation to generation and hand – production system provided a high degree of artistic involvement and gave opportunities for design.
Schools of design in the 19th century
Some of the scientist who study the development of design in Britain in 19th century state that it was too much distanced from the real life, didn’t pay necessary attention to practical aspects and failed to perform its main function – serving for the good of people. Schmiechen expresses their opinion as following “introduction of the machine into industry resulted the divorce of art from work” (Design history, 167). They state that the meaning of art in the life or ordinary people was decreased when artists lost the opportunity to control production. The labor of artists was replaced by machinery work and factories, called “satanic mills” in the beginning could do much quicker anything, artists would spend days on. People didn’t want to design for machine production and situation with design was very poor, like never before during the whole European history. Such scientists as Engels, Carlyle, Pugin shared this opinion. Ruskin, one of the biggest art critics and active socialist Morris went even further and declared a war against mechanization and organized a movement aiming to save art and labor. The main point of those, who support this point of view was blaming mechanization and industrialization for reducing the value of skillful work and individual approach to labor. They also stated that the worth of art was renewed only in the beginning of the 20th century after founding of German Wekbund and Peter Behren’s works. “Proletarianization” of the society caused the proletarianization of labor, creating an abyss between art and labor.
Such a vision of the design of the 19th century was very popular till recent time, making industrial society and skillful artists an opposition, which couldn’t coexist peacefully.
Therefore, there are other opinions, which don’t regard industrialization of the society as mere evil, which has reduced the value of art in the society. There is a group of historians, who have different vision of the subject. They don’t regard social changes as the main reason of art decline in the 19th century, and even consider the machinery production, demographic changes and development of new technology among the main factors, which have caused the growth of art-labor interaction and growth of their quality. They tend to see the bright side of the subject, stressing on the positive aspect of changes in the society, which gave more opportunities for the workers’ personal growths and development.
30s of the 19th century brought much changes to the social, political and cultural life of the society and design revolution was one of the consequences of these changes. Changes in profits have caused the changes in the consuming abilities of the society – people had more money and could afford buying more things. This way a new group consisted of the members of middle class appeared, and it was a group of “consumers”. These changes had big impact on the development of design, making it more corresponding to the needs of “consumers”. Another important factor was a wave of bourgeois revolutions, which took place in many European countries. Bourgeois revolutions brought bourgeois ideology to the society in general and to the development of design in particular. Ideas of high-moral standards occupied the minds of British people of that time found realization in design patterns. The idea that moral environment creates moral behavior and thoughts became very popular during that time. This idea, often underestimated, put the focus back on the things, which surrounded people in everyday life, giving them moral value, which, naturally, was reflected in design. Design became one of the moral instruments during those times and simplicity, very often mistakenly regarded as poor design or its absence was not less than a design, subdued to moral values of the contemporary society.
These two factors had a big impact on the design development. It’s meaning wasn’t reduced or neglected, it was just transformed to different plane in order to adopt the needs of the society and, which was most important – new customers. Another important aspect of the transformation of design was its increased social value. Tendency to socialization couldn’t miss art and design, as a part of it, also was influenced by it. This way design became more social, corresponding to the needs of the society. In 1989 Select Committee on the Schools of Design saw main function of design as to distract people’s attention “from degrading objects and pursuits”. It also stated, that “the value of design in its bearing on the interests of the laboring population i worthy of notice… On the one hand, by the substitution of machine for hand labor, human labor is economized, and the cost of production of simple “products” is minimized, on the other hand, as soon as the public obtains plain manufacture cheap, it seems to desire, almost by a law of nature, to have them decorated and thus creates an employment for that labor which otherwise would appear for the time superfluous.” (Design history, 167).
People of the 19th century, directed by the idea of society perfection were obsessed with the idea of making both – art and technology serve the needs of the society. Their main goal was not to extirpate art, but to make it the property of all people, changing the statues of art as something, meant for the “group of chosen” and unattainable for the rest of the society. “Early Victorians envisaged the merger of art and technology as a way to uplift society” (Design history, 167). They didn’t mean to reduce to social role of art and culture. They just wanted to bring society to higher level, making its members able to appreciate its higher values. Those, who longed for social progress, regarded it in combination with design only. They regarded machinery production as one of the main means of design perfection. Lower costs of the products and new designed technologies opened wide perspectives for predictors to create the objects of art. Saving time and money on production gave wide horizons for creativity. Design began accomplishing social function, brining social ideas to the wide audience.
We must be thankful to technical revolution and design revolution for the appearance of a big number of new industry branches, using new types of design. These new industries became the carriers of a new ornamental design, adopted for the machinery production. This fact totally contradicts the previous opinion, that mechanization and industrialization became suppressors for the art development in general and designs in particular. Counting on these facts, we find out that development of machinery production lead to the perfection of design, giving it more technical means for realization. In addition, primitiveness of the first machines left a lot of work for people and let the field for the realization of their creative abilities. “The production of engraved etchings with photographic negatives became heavily dependent upon highly-trained etchers and engravers, while the new floorcloth industry (made possible because of cheap machine-made canvas) relied on a new class of designers, handblock printers, color mixers, and other art-labor jobs. (Architectural Magazine and Journal). Changes in the industry let use new materials for building, ornamenting and decoration. This caused the development of new design specialists, able to work with these new materials. It’s worth to mention wallpaper industry and a great impact it had on the changes of design. Machinery revolution gave the opportunity to produce comparatively cheap wallpapers. Very quickly this type of wall decoration became the most popular among different layers of the society. Rich people, who used expensive tapestries had now much cheaper alternative. At the same time, people with more modest income could also afford wallpapers. Demand for the wallpapers created a demand for the wallpaper design. Wallpaper industry needed new design all the time and here designers had a perfect opportunity to experiment with texture, form and ornament. The demand for people, working on wallpapers production grew by 60 percent during the 40s of the 19th century and over eighteen hundred of new wallpaper designs have been produced during that time. (Census Returns). As a steam roller production of the wallpapers wasn’t of that high quality as it is now, very often it needed a hand painting also. This way machinery production was combined with the hand painting.
The development of design can be traced in the metal goods production also. Invention of electroplating lead to a quick growth of house hold goods production. Now such domestic goods as stoves, irons and lightning fixtures became popular trade objects. All these products also needed design specialists. This branch gave a lot of opportunities, as it was comparatively new and gave wide field for creativity. These changes created a demand for designers, decorators, engravers, dye sinkers of the domestic goods. Appearance was an important criterion of value of new goods and meant not less than usability. In reality, the development of metal industry became a big challenge for designers, as they had to use their abilities on three-dimensional objects instead of a surface design they got used to.
Textile printing industry development presents one of the brightest examples of positive influence of industrial revolution to design development. Despite high industrialization of this industry branch by the use of steam powered cylinders, new methods of cloth dying the meaning of human labor wasn’t reduced there and even vice verse, the number of workers working in the textile industry grew twice. At the same time, the number of jobs, which required artistic skill didn’t reduce and the number of art-labor job has even increased. In reality, textile production in the early stages of industrialization needed even more skill in composition of design, drawing, understanding of scale and proportion and color than it used to before the process of mechanization.
In some cases, like in printing industry, improvements and innovation in design were caused by the implementation of the machinery production, when the old design patters were perfected in order to correspond the higher standards. For example, new dye stuff allowed designers of printing industry to use new shades and new system of color gradiation, not available before. The development of cloth industry and its production lead to development of new kinds of clothes. It also made it possible to design new patterns of clothes for the internal and external market of the country. Fashion industry got a big push for development and changes let fashion designers and couturiers to realize their new ideas in clothes design.
Weaving industry also went through great changes, including the development and perfection of design. It had to go through big changes thanks to the invention of seam-powered jacquard loom, which simplified the difficult process of weaving in several times. Designing in woven went through serous changes, got new possibilities and ways for growth. The functions of each worker were much narrowed and they got narrower specialization. At the same time the amount of information they had to operate grew, as they now were to understand the whole complicated process of design execution. Higher technical devices game more opportunities for design experimentation. Competition required corresponding to the higher standards and needs of the society and new design patters were developed every year in order to meet the needs of the customers.
A lot of people of art, authorities and producers were worried with the decline of art development and design decline.
Finally, their concerns resulted the appearance of government Schools of Design. First one was established in 1937 but their quality grew quickly and there were more than twenty in 1849. During the period from 1837 to 1849 about 15 thousand people were trained there.
Generally, historians give very little appreciation to theses schools and regard them as a bad example of Victorian design reform. Cole and many other historians state that these schools were not centered on the practical aspects of design and were lost in theories and moralizing, not performing their main practical functions.
There are several reasons these first Design Schools got so negative response. Public opinion was conditioned by highly negative attitude of Cole, who was among the leading art critics of that time.
Another possible reason was in a difficulty of achieving balance between general education and studying particular aspects. Technological production needed a strong work division and wanted the workers to be centered on one practical aspect being aware of the whole process of production at the same time. This put design schools to a dilemma, as they had to decide which should be primary – centering on the process as the one whole or paying attentions to separate aspect.
There is another group of historians who don’t agree that Design school can be regarded only as a “shameful” episode of the Design history.
If we see the situation from the different angle, we can find many positive moments these schools brought to the development of contemporary design. They prepared specialists, ready to operate in the new condition of industrialization and mechanization. For many young workers, the schools were the way to get professional knowledge without the years of apprenticeship, where they got only passive role of observers. Young and initiative men and women became the active participants of the study process and got the knowledge and skills they could have spent years for, much quicker. Finishing design school gave more opportunities for further employment and meant the raising the level of skills for those, who have already been working. Among the relatively big percent of schools which gave only theoretical knowledge weakly connected with practice, there were positive examples, which provided a strong correlation between theory and practice and prepared good, qualified specialists who possessed both – theoretical and practical knowledge. “The Glasgow School seems to have done what critics and historians say the schools did not do: use the classroom to bring about practical design solutions for industry” (Industrial revolution, 274). In addition, the owners of the manufactures gladly provided the workplaces for the graduates of Design Schools.
Conclusion
Industrial revolution and implementation of new technologies have changed workshops to factories. The change of the whole system of production lead to the change of the role of workers in it. Patrimonial system of education, as it was presented in the workshops gradually ceased its existence as the owners of the factories were very little interested in the ethic education of their workers and their artistic abilities.
A number of Design schools have been created starting from the 1837 in order to prevent the decline of design. Historian argue about the role and affect these schools had to the development of design. Some state that giving only theoretical knowledge, they were too distanced from real life and didn’t bring any practical value. Cole, one of the most famous critics of the 19th century shares this opinion. Others see positive aspect in the work of these schools. They state that they prepared the first generation of designers, ready to work with the machinery production and implement new design patterns there.

References:

1. Bernal, John Desmond. Science and Industry in the Nineteenth Century Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970.
2. Derry, Thomas Kingston and Trevor I. Williams. A Short History of Technology: From the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900 New York: Dover Publications, 1993.
3. Design history: and ontology ed.Doordan Denis P., Cambridge Mass.:MIT Press, 1995
4. Forty A, Objects of Desire. Design and Society from Wedgewood to IBM. New York Pantheon, 1986
5. Hobsbawm, Eric J. Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day. New York: New Press; Distributed by W.W. Norton,1999.
6. Kranzberg, Melvin and Carroll W. Pursell, Jr. editors. Technology in Western civilization New York, Oxford University Press, 1967.
7. Lines, Clifford, Companion to the Industrial Revolution, London, New York etc., Facts on File, 1990
8. Industrial Revolution. Design. Vol. 3, 1843