My family and I live rather simply (my mother jokingly described our home as “monastic” on one occasion – she was exaggerating, but not by much). My husband and I have embraced a minimal aesthetic for our home (and pretty much every area of our lives) because we find it reduces stress, and our kids have a lot more space to play in!

Unlike some minimalists, we haven’t reduced our possessions to a finite number (there are hardcore minimalists who feel uncomfortable owning more than 100 things), but we’re always looking for a chance to get rid of things we neither want nor use.

The other day I received a letter from a friend interested in minimalism. She was especially curious about how I managed to remain a minimalist while maintaining interest in the Pre-Raphaelites.

Her question surprised me, because I had supposed the answer was obvious. Pre-Raphaelite art might not seem minimalist to us today, but its practitioners were proto-minimalists in comparison with the rest of the Victorian art world. And William Morris was probably the first non-ascetic minimalist in the west. “Have nothing in your houses that you don’t know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” is his most famous quote, and an inspiration to minimalists everywhere!

Morris never shied from criticizing what we might call conspicuous consumption:

“I have never been in any rich man’s house which would not have looked the better for having a bonfire made outside of it of nine-tenths of all that it held…as far as I can make out, what people usually mean by [luxury], is either a gathering of possessions which are sheer vexations to the owner, or a chain of pompous circumstance, which checks and annoys the rich man at every step.”

I was always fascinated that William Morris advocated painting your walls white and minimizing ornaments, especially since his company made lots of money selling wall coverings! For me, William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites are an inspiration to embrace beauty, purity and simplicity. I don’t decorate my home in a Pre-Raphaelite or Arts and Crafts style, because it doesn’t reflect the time in which I live (and I’ve fully embraced technology, which Morris would abhor – but then, he’d never seen an iPad!). However, while my home might not look like it was designed by Morris, I like to think it’s still very much inspired by his work.

I recall one of the things that struck me most about reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs was the fact that it took Jobs ages to decorate his home, and even then, it remained nearly empty. Isaacson attributes this to Jobs’ perfectionism (which was likely a factor), but perhaps Jobs also recognized that having piles of meaningless stuff was not a necessary aspect of material success.

Ultimately, unlike Morris, I’m a happy capitalist. I freely admit to relishing some forms of conspicuous consumption. It’s rather utopian of me, but I hope that instead of reducing consumption we’ll change our patterns of consumption in ways that will improve quality of life and reduce waste (for example, fewer tchotchkes, smarter homes).

Excerpt From: Morris, William. “Hopes and Fears for Art.” iBooks (page 61, chapter four).

Check out this book on the iBookstore (it’s free!): https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/hopes-and-fears-for-art/id501614906?mt=11