Self portrait

1853–1856

Carlyle and Ruskin: the ideas that set his course

At Oxford he was deeply influenced by Thomas Carlyle’s “Past and Present”, which championed medieval values, and by the chapter “On the Nature of Gothic Architecture” in John Ruskin’s “The Stones of Venice” (“one of the very few necessary and inevitable utterances of the century”, as he later put it): hand-craftsmanship and the artisan raised to the status of an artist became the core of his philosophy.

1853–1856

The “Birmingham Set”: a brotherhood of friends

Through Burne-Jones he joined a group of Birmingham undergraduates at Pembroke College — William Fulford, Richard Watson Dixon, Charles Faulkner and Cormell Price — who called themselves the “Brotherhood”; the wealthiest of them, Morris was generous with his money, and the friends read Tennyson and recited Shakespeare together.

July 1855

A life of art decided: France, 1855

In summer 1854 he travelled to Belgium to look at medieval paintings, and in July 1855 he went with Burne-Jones and Fulford across northern France, visiting medieval churches and cathedrals; on this trip he and Burne-Jones committed themselves to “a life of art”, which strained his relations with his family, who believed he should enter commerce or the clergy.

summer 1856

He meets Dante Gabriel Rossetti

In the summer of 1856 he met Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whom he and Burne-Jones regarded as the chief figure of the Pre-Raphaelites; Burne-Jones became Rossetti’s apprentice, and Rossetti persuaded Morris to give up architecture and take up painting in the Pre-Raphaelite style.

January 1856

With the architect Street: meeting Philip Webb

Having passed his finals and been awarded a BA, in January 1856 he began an apprenticeship with the Oxford-based Neo-Gothic architect George Edmund Street; he was placed under the supervision of the young architect Philip Webb, who became a close friend, and soon followed Street to his London office.

October 1857

He meets Jane Burden

In October 1857 he met Jane Burden, a woman from a poor working-class background, at a theatre performance; Rossetti first asked her to model for him and both men were smitten, but it was Morris who began a relationship with her — they became engaged in spring 1858 (Burden would later admit she had never loved Morris).