ABSTRACT
Beginning with Ruskin's place in the revival of traditional crafts, and the ‘The Nature of Gothic’ from The Stones of Venice as a canonical text for the arts and crafts movement, this essay considers how its ideas have also been viewed critically. It examines recent thinking around the nature of workmanship and craft, and how it advances challenging notions about the primacy of handicraft in the making process. Ruskin's connection between the means of production and the social conditions of the maker sits at the heart of this and, as developed further by Morris, this line of thinking still forms part of a dynamic debate about the nature of craft, ethical production and its place in conservation. The text extract included here is from ‘The Nature of Gothic’ and examines one of its leading characteristics, ‘Savageness’.
