INTRODUCTION
Christopher Dresser was born in Scotland in 1834 and died in 1904 while on a business trip to Europe. In 1847 he enrolled in the Government School of Design in London, from where he graduated in 1854. This school was part of a network that had been set up to train designers for industry, not just because of a perception that British aesthetic standards were low but also because competition from the French had led to a decline in industrial profitability.
The principal of the design school when Dresser was there, felt it was of the greatest importance that the students should have the opportunity of working with, and absorbing the ideas of, the most important exponents in the fields of painting and architecture. This was in addition to the emphasis placed on the knowledge of plant structure which was considered essential in the field of design. This not only provided Dresser with a thorough understanding of theoretical principles but also led to a lifelong interest in botany, particularly in plant structure.
Another major influence on Dresser's development as a designer was provided by Japanese art. He visited the country in 1877 and became particularly interested in Shintoism whose art embodied the principles of simplicity and utility. The results of this can be seen particularly in his glass and metalware.
Dresser's primary interest lay in the domestic interior and its contents. He believed that aesthetically pleasing objects should be available to everyone regardless of their social class. With this in mind, he produced commercially viable designs that were amenable to mass-production. Because of the growth in the circulation of magazines and the holding of exhibitions to feature what was available, many more people were becoming aware of items which would enhance the environments in which they lived.
Some contemporaries of Dresser's shared his belief that art should be for everyone. These were the founders of the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Aesthetic Movement, but they differed from him in the way they sought to bring art to the people. The most important member of the Arts and Craft Movement was William Morris. Instead of looking to the possibilities offered by the industrial revolution, he sought change by looking back to the days of the medieval guilds when objects were all made by hand. The company he set up did indeed produce beautiful objects but their price limited them to a small circle. The Aesthetic Movement saw art as ameliorating industrialism. Both of these groups were negative in their attitude towards mass production unlike Dresser who made positive use of its opportunities.
Dresser was a prodigious worker. He lectured, wrote books and articles, designed furniture, carpets, textiles, wallpaper, ceramics, metalware and glass. He set up a studio to train commercial designers. His influence was not confined to his own country but spread to Europe and America. In his day he was regarded as the leading industrial designer of Victorian times, yet after his death he was practically forgotten. In recent times, however, there has been renewed interest in his work, with exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1952 and 1972, and in Australia last year when the design studio, L'atelier Alessi, featured some of his glass and metalware in a showing of its current productions.
