Image of John Ruskin

Timeline

Lifetime: 1819 - 1900 Passed: ≈ 124 years ago

Title

Writer, Philosopher

Country/Nationality

United Kingdom
Wikipedia

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was an English writer, philosopher and art critic of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy.

Ruskin's writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He wrote essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, architectural structures and ornamentation. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art gave way in time to plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society.

Ruskin was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.

Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J. M. W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature". From the 1850s, he championed the Pre-Raphaelites, who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.

Books by John Ruskin

The Seven Lamps of Architecture Cover image

The Seven Lamps of Architecture

Non-Fiction Essays
Truth Power Sacrifice

The Seven Lamps of Architecture is an extended essay, first published in May 1849 and written by the English art critic and theorist John Ruskin. The 'lamps' of the title are Ruskin's principles of architecture, which he later enlarged upon in the th...

The Two Paths Cover image

The Two Paths

Non-Fiction Essays
Art Design Architecture

"The Two Paths" is a collection of five lectures delivered in 1858 and 1859 by John Ruskin on art and architecture. This is how the author himself presents the book: "The following addresses, though spoken at different times, are intentionally connec...

Lectures on Landscape Cover image

Lectures on Landscape

Non-Fiction Essays
Art Design Architecture Landscape

A series of lectures on landscape painting delivered at Oxford in 1871, by artist, critic, and social commentator, John Ruskin.

The King of the Golden River  Cover image

The King of the Golden River

Fairy Tale
Children Kingdom Children's Literature Treasure Evil Legend Myths Valley Mountains

The King of the Golden River or The Black Brothers: A Legend of Stiria is a fantasy story originally written in 1841 by John Ruskin for the twelve-year-old Effie (Euphemia) Gray, whom Ruskin later married. It was published in book form in 1851, and b...

Sesame and Lilies Cover image

Sesame and Lilies

Non-Fiction Reference work
Self Help Power Nature Action Social criticism Challenges Moral Materialism

In a world where men are consumed by wealth and women are confined to domesticity, Victorian social critic John Ruskin boldly challenges the status quo in his groundbreaking work, Sesame and Lilies. In this captivating collection of lectures, Ruskin...