Page 167 - Constructing Craft

The rural myth in New Zealand had its foundations in Britain. During the imperialist

period in Britain’s history dependence on a domestic agriculture dwindled to a very
low proportion of overall economic activity. Britain was already a heavily urbanised

society. Nevertheless, throughout the transformation from a rural to urban society
English attitudes to the country, and to ideas of rural life, persisted with

extraordinary power. Even after the society was predominantly urban its literature
was still predominantly rural. As a result, in the twentieth century, in an urban and

industrial land, forms of the older ideas and experiences remained remarkably

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persistent.

The Cyclops Works c. 1845 ‒ 1850 by an unknown artist. The engraving
emphasises the contrast between constructions of urban and rural Britain. Painting:
in J. Barringer, Men at Work: Art and Labour in Victorian Britain.

The ‘back-to-the-land’ Movement

Craftspeople in New Zealand looked to Britain for guidance on craft traditions. Craft

in late nineteenth century Britain was closely associated with the notion that the
rural environment was where the ‘English’ way of life was naturally located. Those

who were alarmed by the social degradation they saw in the cities and who still
retained a nostalgic image of a rural Britain before the industrial revolution, could

find only one solution to the problems they believed that industrialisation had

created: ‘[T]he city must go, industry must be dismantled, the people must be

Constructing Craft