Frank Lloyd Wright created the oak dining table and chairs in 1904 for the George Barton House in Buffalo, N.Y.

In England, where it began, the Arts and Crafts movementarose in reaction to the explosion of mass production that floodedmarkets with inexpensive, poorly made and sometimes downright uglymanufactured goods. Around the world the Industrial Revolution waswell established and political and social unrest was rife. The timewas ripe for an embrace of fine craftsmanship, individuality andsimple and functional design. As the Arts and Crafts movementspread across the globe, each country put its own stamp on it. Fromits first manifestation in England, the movement spread acrossEurope, then to the United States, Japan and finally Russia.

In the face of overwhelming industrialization, many of the traditional techniques abandoned at its advent underwent revival. Other traditions and conditions underwent reform. Practitioners of Arts and Crafts strove for a design aesthetic that would incorporate all aspects of domestic living into a harmonious unit. Naturalism and the beauty of materials and technique was primary and quality of life was paramount.

Craftsmanship resumed its importance and the home itself was viewed as an integrated work of art. All the accoutrements of daily living underwent scrutiny: furniture, ceramics, glass, textiles, carpets, graphics, metalwork and jewelry. Nothing was too insignificant to be subjected to the principles of good design; objects ranged from the magnificent to the humble.

The exhibit proves an exhaustive exploration of the diverse expressions of Arts and Crafts as it spread from country to country, from the major cities to the countryside, when rustication was considered beneficial to creativity and the ideal life. In its wide sweep “International Arts and Crafts” raises questions as to the position of Arts and Crafts beneath the umbrella that is folk art. For example, the inclusion of Native American works and Curtis’s photographs of the American Indian in the exhibit provokes thought about the place of indigenous art in the spectrum of art.

The roots of the Arts and Crafts movement were put down quickly and firmly in the early part of the Nineteenth Century in London. It spread rapidly to other major cities of the United Kingdom and to the countryside. By the 1880s, exhibits were offered periodically by newly organized entities like the Century Guild, the Art Workers Guild and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society that emphasized handwork and craftsmanship above all else. They presented shows that combined architecture, painting, sculpture, interior design and the panoply of decorative arts, some of which were not previously considered worthy of exhibition by the high-toned Royal Academy. They also aided in the revival of traditions techniques such as embroidery, calligraphy, enameling and bookbinding. Arts and Crafts societies and art colonies sprang up all over the United Kingdom. Objects created by members of such groups are among the stars of the new exhibit.

Syracuse, N.Y., potter Adelaide Alsop Robineau created “Viking Ship Vase” in 1905. Its stunning green and blue glazes form a sea to support the carved Viking ships.

The exhibit is organized chronologically and geographically,beginning with Great Britain. The influence of critic andphilosopher John Ruskin, who studied and wrote on the relationshipsamong art, society and labor, and designer and manufacturer WilliamMorris on the Arts and Crafts movement was primary. Morris designedand produced works with Ruskin’s tenets in mind, emphasizing thevalue of work, the pleasure of craftsmanship and the natural beautyof materials.

A case in point is a spectacular silk and wool tapestry, “The Forest,” designed by Morris, John Henry Dearle and Philip Webb that depicts a peacock, a hare, a fox, a lion and a raven in a sylvan setting. Measuring 51 by 178 inches, it was handwoven in 1887 by Charles Knight and Sleath John for Morris & Co. An 1873 sample of block printed furnishing fabric that Morris designed and manufactured in 1873 is in a pattern of blossoms and leaves and is also on view. The themes of both examples confirm Morris’s widely reported aversion to modern life.

In addition to Ruskin and Morris, other big guns of the English Arts and Crafts movement included the architects, designers and artists Walter Crane, Charles Francis Annesley Voysey, Charles Robert Ashbee, Mackay Hush Baillie Scott and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, all of whom are well represented.

When the Arts and Crafts movement crossed the Atlantic, it assumed a particularly American cast reflective of the relative newness of the country. It thrived on both coasts and in the Midwest. The major figures were Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles and Henry Greene and Gustav Stickley, who with other designers incorporated the influence of the English movement with the indigenous heritage and added a touch of Japan to the mix. Colonies, experimental communities and potteries appeared all over the country. Its first toehold, however, was the East Coast where potteries like Grueby, Marblehead and Roycroft and colonies like Byrdcliffe emerged. The country’s first Society of Arts and Crafts, formed in Boston in 1897, was focused on elevating crafts to the level of fine art through a jury system.

Around the same time, Stickley established his Craftsman Farms in Parsippany, N.J., and his Craftsman Workshops in Syracuse, N.Y. He also began to publish The Craftsman, a periodical whose early issues were devoted to Morris and Ruskin.

A reconstructed Craftsman room on view is illustrative of Stickley’s themes of honesty, simplicity and usefulness. While Stickley was not a furniture designer, he was a design director and owner of a furniture making company that employed designers whose creations he brought to market. A 1901 Stickley armchair on view exhibits the rectilinear qualities that render his products identifiable.

Chicago was at the center of expansion and economic growth. It was also a center of social, political and later design reform. At its center were Frank Lloyd Wright and, later, his Prairie School. Wright and his contemporaries drew inspiration from the flat landscape to produce wide open constructions that flowed along the contour of the land. Wright and others espoused the philosophy of the architectural creation as a unit – the structure, the furnishings and the layout.

Gustav Stickley designed the armchair of oak and leather in 1901 for production at the Craftsman Workshops in Syracuse, N.Y.

On the West Coast, Charles and Henry Greene were the leadingdesigners and they, too, viewed a house as a total work of art.Taking advantage of the salubrious climate, they took the concept alittle further and incorporated the gardens into the overall plan.

The Arts and Crafts movement in California and the West Coast drew much from indigenous and Asian influences. A lamp on view by Elizabeth Eaton Burton in copper and shell incorporates the subtle elements of its environment. Work by the Greene brothers on view includes a set of stained glass doors from the Blacker estate in Pasadena, Calif.; a mahogany and stained glass light fixture, also from the Blacker house; and a maple, oak, ebony and silver desk made in 1908 for the Gamble house, also in Pasadena.

Like England and America, the European nations were more than ready to embrace the Arts and Crafts movement. Rising industrialization, along with political and social turmoil, was brewing nearly everywhere. Against that background Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of the beautification of life reached a wide audience as interest applied art exploded and Arts and Crafts werkstaetten and schools were formed.

Although the German guilds were based on the English ones, there was a distinct difference: while the English reacted against industrialization, the Germans made use of it and used technology to achieve quality. Primary movers in Germany were artists such as Richard Riemerschmid, whose designs on view include a flowing salon chair, a covered stoneware tureen and a colorful wool carpet. Riemerschmid also designed ten interiors for the Municipal Exhibition Palace in Dresden and a garden city with an industrial base nearby.

In 1899, the influential colony at Darmstadt was established under the patronage of Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig, grandson of Queen Victoria, who made use of his English connections to engage English artists in the renovation of his palace there. The Darmstadt colony was meant to improve the quality of handcrafts and to increase political, social and economic returns.

As the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Vienna had long been a center of art, music and science. It was there that the Secessionist movement established itself in reaction to the conservatism of art. One offshoot of that was the Wiener Werkstätte, arguably the most influential and prolific of the Arts and Crafts guilds, which was established in 1903 by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser. The importance of the Wiener Werkstätte cannot be underscored. Its chief distinction from other such colonies and workshops around the world was that the work was costly and available only to the affluent.

The reconstructed room is from the Folk Crafts Pavilion built originally for the 1928 Exhibition for the Promotion of Domestic Products in Commemoration of the Enthronement of the Emperor in Tokyo. It shows the view through the dining room to the master’s room.

The contributions of master designer Hoffmann are welldocumented in international Arts and Crafts. They include a set ofelectroplated flatware made in 1907, a geometric mother-of-pearldesk set, jewelry, a handsome fluted tea and coffee service, abentwood armchair and a fruit basket, all of which were made by theWiener Werkstätte. Modernism had firm footing in Vienna whereanother major proponent was architect and designer Adolf Loos, whourged the simple and egalitarian.

Arts and Crafts in the Scandinavian countries was driven by an interest in preserving local cultures and the movement there resulted in the revival of early vernacular art, music, literature and architecture. The output in those countries was a unique and lively mix of tradition and mythology.

Prerevolutionary Russia also saw a revival of the traditional crafts and the emancipation of the serfs, which resulted in a peasant migration to the cities where awareness of peasant folk art blossomed. In the mid-1870s, the Abramtsevo estate outside Moscow became an art colony and, like its counterparts around the world, it also provided education and training for the disenfranchised. Similar smaller workshops appeared that taught such traditional handcrafts as lace making, embroidery, enameling, even dyeing. A sturdy box in the form of an owl in silver, copper, champleve enamel and semiprecious stones was made by Princess Maria Tenisheva who established workshops in ceramics, embroidery and woodworking on her estate Takashkino.

Arts and Crafts arrived late in Japan, but tardiness served only to strengthen its impact. The Mingei movement (folk crafts) swept the nation in its promulgation of the recognition of traditional folk crafts and the creation of new work based on folk traditions, all of which aided in the development of a new vision for democratic Japan. Much attention was paid to popular culture as communes and studio art colonies inundated the country during the 1920s, and the first exhibition of the Japan Craft Art Association opened in Tokyo in 1926. The Japanese ideal of the art of the people was derived from Ruskin and Morris and blended with its own history.

One of the effects of the Mingei movement was an entirely new style of middle-class living, and one of the highlights of the exhibition is the recreation of a room from a Mingei building that was designed as a Folk Craft Pavilion for a 1928 exhibit. The Mikuniso house incorporated Eastern and Western design elements.

The International Arts and Crafts exhibition is part of Indianapolis 2005, a citywide celebration of cultural events and developments the city will enjoy in the coming year. Part of the celebration is the newly expanded Indianapolis Museum of Art, established in 1883, that has opened its new galleries with this exhibition.

The exhaustive catalog, International Arts and Crafts, is edited by Karen Livingstone and Linda Parry and was published by the Victoria and Albert Museum. Gorgeously illustrated and extensively researched, it available at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art is at 4000 Michigan Road. For information, 317-923-1331 or www.ima-art.org.