Includes two of John Ruskin's famous essays: "The Nature of the Gothic" and "The Work of Iron" from his book The Stones of Venice. Ruskin's insights into the need for individual artistic freedom, and his disdain for the mass-production art of the Victorian era, radically altered society's perception of creative design and remain powerfully relevant to our ideas of beauty today.
'To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, religion, all in one' John Ruskin - born 200 years ago, in February 1819 - was the greatest critic of his age: a critic not only of art and architecture but of society and life. But his writings - on beauty and truth, on work and leisure, on commerce and capitalism, on life and how to live it - can teach us more than ever about how to see the world around us clearly and how to live it. Dr Suzanne Fagence Cooper delves into Ruskin's writings and uncovers the dizzying beauty and clarity of his vision. Whether he was examining the exquisite carvings of a medieval cathedral or the mass-produced wares of Victorian industry, chronicling the beauties of Venice and Florence or his own descent into old age and infirmity, Ruskin saw vividly the glories and the contradictions of life, and taught us how to see them as well.
Despite professing a dislike of having his portrait taken, John Ruskin's footsteps were dogged by portrait painters, sculptors, caricaturists and photographers from the cradle to the grave and beyond. A thoroughly accessible book it lists and describes some 331likenesses made between 1822 and 1998. The three introductory chapters to this book survey Ruskin portraiture and the portraits, his general physical appearance througout his life, his hands, his mouth, his various illnesses and their effect on his appearance, his clothes, style of dress, size, tailors, their bills, etc. These opening chapters include many descriptions and reminiscences by Ruskin's friends and acquaintances, and those who portrayed him. The principal part of the book deals with the individual portraits, their history, where and why they were made, what Ruskin was doing at that time of his life and what his connection was with the artists in question. He was portrayed so regularly that this section is also effectively a potted Ruskin biography, based on the portraits. A 'catalogue raisonne' of the Ruskin portraits follows where the physical details of the works are listed, together with details of reproductions, exhibitions and provenance.
Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at nineteen to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, unconsummated union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. On a trip to Scotland she met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protégé, and fell passionately in love with him. In a daring act, Effie left Ruskin, had their marriage annulled and entered into a long, happy marriage with Millais. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle. In Cooper's hands, this passionate love story also becomes an important new look at the work of both Ruskin and Millais with Effie emerging as a key figure in their artistic development. Effie is a heartbreakingly beautiful book about three lives passionately entwined with some of the greatest paintings of the pre-Raphaelite period.
Who was John Ruskin? What did he achieve--and how? Where is he today? One possible answer: almost everywhere. Ruskin was the Victorian age's best-known and most controversial intellectual and polymath--an artist, scientist, critic, polemicist, social crusader, philanthropist, and early environmentalist. Two hundred years since his birth in 1819, his ideas have a fierce modern relevance. In Ruskinland, Andrew Hill, the award-winning Financial Times columnist, builds on Ruskin's pin-sharp appreciation of art and architecture, his extraordinary draughtsmanship, and his insistence that to see and draw the world is the best way to understand it better. The book lays out how Ruskin envisaged radical solutions to social inequality, excessive executive pay, flawed economic orthodoxy, advancing automation, environmental disaster, and meaningless work. It explains the importance of his prescient view of our fragile, interconnected world, and shows how Ruskin's radical ideas can still help us run our governments, our museums, our galleries, our companies, and our lives. Part travelogue, part quest, part unconventional biography, Ruskinland retraces Ruskin's steps, telling his exceptional and tragic life story, unearthing his influence, talking to people and visiting places--from Venice to Florida's Gulf coast--where Ruskin's foresighted ideas are, sometimes unexpectedly, alive today.
