History of art and design

¶ … large extent the art - and business - of advertising is the process of creating recognizable emblems. Much of the effectiveness of advertising relies on its ability to create (or adopt) visual metaphors.

While many of these emblems are simplistic ones, others are more complex. These complex visual metaphors within the realm of advertising are fascinating because they manage to inject within the necessarily pared-down visual vocabulary of the ad or commercial a wealth of meanings.

One current such complex visual metaphor that has in recent years become increasingly common in ads is the use of buildings and (to a lesser extent) furniture and decorative arts objects created in the Arts and Crafts style as emblems of "home."

When most of us hear the term "arts and crafts," we tend to think about young children with their hands sticky with paint or clay, creating to their hearts' content.

But the term also applies to an artistic and philosophical movement that swept over Europe and the United States in the decades between the Civil War and the First World War. The Arts and Crafts movement was a reaction to two separate series of events in the 19th century.

They were first a rebellion against the increasing industrialization of society, which ensured that people could acquire more material goods while also ensuring that these material goods were machine-made and interchangeable with the possessions of everyone else. The founders of the Arts and Crafts Movement - including the English designer and social reformer William Morris - wanted people to appreciate the quality of the hand-made furniture and decorative objects that were so quickly disappearing from most people's homes.

The second major social and cultural force that the Arts and Crafts Movement - and to a lesser but still important extent Wright himself - was rebelling against was the rise of the Victorian aesthetic, which had filled middle-class and upper-class homes with flounces and flowered prints, heavy brocaded draperies, throw pillows and beribboned bolsters, ornately carved wooden fruits atop overstuffed settees, lacy shawls thrown over the ends of embroidered chaise lounges - all stuffed into high, narrow rooms with a few small windows.