William Morris and the Beauty of Life: Art, Equality, and the Environment

Dr Ingrid Hanson, lecturer in English Literature at the University of Manchester, will explore the radical inspirations behind Morris’s vision for a shared and just world as part of our ‘Inspired by William Morris‘ series.

What kind of inspiration might we take from William Morris’s art? While his ‘golden rule’, set out in his pioneering lecture of 1883 ‘The Beauty of Life’ – ‘have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’ – may be known to many, Dr Ingrid Hanson suggests that some other, more challenging answers can also be found in that same lecture.

This talk will take in his lectures, his political protest songs and his art, to argue that Morris’s close and lifelong attention to the natural world, its forms, shapes, colours, and interactions, is embedded in his growing understanding of the environment as a ‘commons’, shared by all, locally, nationally and internationally, so that an art ‘made by the people and for the people, a joy to the maker and the user’ must also be an art whose practitioners work to extend ‘beauty of life’ – equality, freedom from oppressive rule, justice, decent housing, and pleasurable, useful work –  to all.

Ingrid Hanson is a lecturer in English Literature at the University of Manchester. She is author of William Morris and the Uses of Violence (Anthem, 2013) and editor of 21st Century Oxford Authors: William Morris (OUP, 2024), as well as articles and book chapters on Morris’s work and other aspects of nineteenth and early twentieth-century literature and culture. In 2018 she was a guest on R4’s In Our Time and R3’s The Essay, talking about William Morris.

Tickets available here. £10pp including refreshments.

Doors open and refreshments at 6.30pm. Talk at 7pm.

Other Related Events

The ‘Inspired by William Morris‘ Stained Glass Exhibition runs in the cathedral from 23 April to 30 June. Entry is free and donations are welcome. Click here for more information

The cathedral is also organising three special guided tours, uncovering the beauty and meaning behind its magnificent stained glass windows. Taking place on 22, 29 May and 5 June at 2.15pm, these tours are £5 per person. Click here for more information

Looking for something creative for the family over May half term? Join us for a William Morris–inspired Children’s Craft Morning with crafting, storytelling and refreshments in the beautiful setting of the cathedral. Tickets are just £3 per child (under 2s go free) and include refreshments for accompanying adults. To book, contact bethwickenden@riponcathedral.org.uk