Went to the deYoung Museum today, saw their exhibit on the Arts and Crafts movement. I actually learned a lot; I knew about Stickley and Morris and Wright, but I really knew nothing about equivalent, contemporaneous and interrelated movements in Russia, Japan, Gemany, Norway and elsewhere; now I do.

Arts and Crafts was a reaction to the deleterious effects of industrialization. Deplorable living conditions and shoddy, soulless manufactured goods had all too rapidly encroached on an (arguably imaginary) idyllic yesteryear of clean, honest, pastoral landscapes, hard work and integrity. The antidote was an artistic movement that emphasized natural materials and skilled manual labor. It reached its highest expression in entire homes (like the Frank Lloyd Wrights familiar to most Americans) conceived as an organic whole, every tile and nail a part of a single work of art.

I love the California school, myself. The first house Stacia and I bought was a tiny Arts and Crafts bungalow, built in the early 1920s. I put a lot of work into that little home, trying to restore it to something true to its original intent. I built a tile-topped trestle table for it, and some end tables in a Stickleyesque style. We bought a Stickleyesque couch and love seat for it, which years later, we still have. When we moved into a bigger home, we bought a genuine Stickley dining set.

Still, I think the most lasting contribution of the A&C movement in America and Europe -- and elsewhere, according to the impression I got from the de Young -- is the now ingrained cultural belief that past days were simpler and more honest. Those artists and craftsmen convinced us of the romantic notion that the past is something not to escape from but to aspire to, and that art and especially design belong to the common man.

Nowadays, this sounds trite. And yet, we see ripples of their philosophy all around us. Target, I imagine the largest retailer in the United States after Wal-Mart, has built their enormous success on the notion that good design is something that everyone should be able to afford and everyone should be able to appreciate. I agree.

It just never occurred to me before today that "Massimo" is the spiritual descendant of Frank Lloyd Wright, just as Tommy Hilfiger -- who paints himself as a rebel -- is the very epitome of what William Morris was rebelling against.