John Ruskin

Who was John Ruskin?

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.

He was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century 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.

Famous Quotes:

• Mountains are to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its anatomy are, in the mountain, brought out with force and convulsive energy, full of expression, passion, and strength.
• When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
• It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends.
• The beginning and almost the end of all good law is that everyone shall work for their bread and receive good bread for their work.
• When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
• Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor.
• Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.
• People cannot live by lending money to one another.
• Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.
• No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.