Abstract

William Morris criticized the aesthetic ugliness of the Victorian era, which is essentially an artist's way of critiquing capitalist modernity. He diagnosed Victorian society with a symptom of "the famine of art", and viewed it as an aesthetic representation of capitalist crisis. He thus elevated "the lesser arts" to stir a redistribution of the collective sensibilities within the community. This approach encouraged artists to return to craftsmanship and create art for the people. Such "aesthetic practice of everyday life," condensed in handicrafts, to some extent reconstructed the sensuous world of individuals and the collective, highlighting the theoretical foundation of Marxist philosophy of praxis. In this sense, everyone is an artist; this is both a way to realize the aesthetic sensuous community and to manifest Morris's socialist ideals.