Formations in the landscape of visited countries.
Among his works, the most famous are Lectures on Art (Eng. Lectures of Art,), “Artistic Fiction: Beautiful and Ugly” (Eng. Fiction: Fair and Foul), “English Art” (Eng. The Art of England), “Modern Artists” (eng. Modern Painters, -), as well as “The Nature of Gothic” (eng. The Nature of Gothic,), the famous chapter from the “Stones of Venice”, subsequently published by William Morris as a separate book. In total, Ruskin wrote fifty books, seven hundred articles and lectures.
Ruskin - art theorist
Ruskin did a lot to strengthen the position of the Pre-Raphaelites, for example, in the article "Pre-Raphaelitism" (eng. Pre-Raphaelitism,), and also greatly influenced the anti-bourgeois pathos of the movement. In addition, he "discovered" for his contemporaries William Turner, a painter and graphic artist, a master of landscape painting. In Modern Artists, Ruskin defends Turner from criticism and calls him "a great artist whose talent I was able to appreciate during my lifetime."
Ruskin also proclaimed the principle of “loyalty to Nature”: “Is it not because we love our creations more than His, we value colored glasses, and not bright clouds ... And, making fonts and erecting columns in honor of That ... we imagine that we will be forgiven for our shameful neglect of the hills and streams with which He endowed our habitation - the earth. As an ideal, he put forward medieval art, such masters of the Early Renaissance as Perugino, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini.
The rejection of mechanization and standardization was reflected in Ruskin's theory of architecture, an emphasis on the significance of the medieval Gothic style. Ruskin praised the Gothic style for its attachment to nature and natural forms, as well as the desire to make the worker happy, which he, like the "Gothic revivalists" led by William Morris, saw in the Gothic aesthetic. The nineteenth century tries to reproduce some Gothic forms (lancet arches, etc.), which is not enough to express the true Gothic feeling, faith and organicism. The Gothic style embodies the same moral values that Ruskin sees in art - the values of strength, firmness and inspiration.
Classical architecture, in contrast to Gothic architecture, expresses moral emptiness, regressive standardization. Ruskin links classical values to modern development, in particular the demoralizing effects of the Industrial Revolution, reflected in architectural phenomena such as the Crystal Palace. Much of Ruskin’s work is devoted to architecture, but he expressed his ideas most expressively in the essay “The Nature of Gothic” from the second volume of The Stones of Venice in 1853, published at the height of the storm in London. Style Battles. In addition to an apology for the Gothic style, he criticized the division of labor and the unregulated market advocated by the English political economy school.
Views on society
While teaching drawing at London's Workers' College, John Ruskin came under the influence of Thomas Carlyle. At this time, he began to be more interested in the ideas of transforming society as a whole, and not just in the theory of art. In the book Unto This Last (1860), which marked the formalization of Ruskin's political and economic views, he criticizes capitalism from the standpoint of Christian socialism, demanding reforms in education, universal employment and social assistance to the disabled and the elderly . In 1908, this work by Ruskin was translated into Gujarati by the Indian politician Mohandas Gandhi under the title "Sarvodaya".
In 1869 he was elected the first honorary professor of art at Oxford University, for whose students he collected a collection of works of art in originals and reproductions. Ruskin also gained great popularity among artisans and the working class - especially in light of the foundation of his monthly publication Fors Clavigera (Letters to the Workers and Laborers of Great Britain) published from 1871 to 1886. Together with William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites, he sought to expose the workers of industrial areas to the beauty of handicraft production and to overcome the dehumanizing effects of mechanized labor with the help of artistic and industrial workshops, where only creative manual labor would be used. Ruskin himself led the first such workshop, called the Guild of St. George.
Personal crisis
In 1848 Ruskin married Effie Grey. The marriage was unsuccessful, the couple parted and in 1854 got a divorce, and in 1855 Effie married the artist
John Ruskin (also Ruskin, English John Ruskin; February 8, 1819, London - January 20, 1900, Brentwood) - English writer, artist, art theorist, literary critic and poet; member of the Arundel Society. He had a great influence on the development of art history and aesthetics in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries.
Born in the family of a wealthy Scottish sherry merchant D. J. Ruskin. Grandfather, John Thomas Ruskin, was a chintz merchant. The atmosphere of religious piety reigned in the family, which had a significant impact on the subsequent views of the writer. Even in his youth, he traveled a lot, and travel diaries necessarily included notes on geological formations in the landscape of the countries visited.
He entered the University of Oxford, and later he taught a course in art history there. Having become a lecturer, he insisted on the need for the study of geology and biology by future landscape painters, as well as on the introduction of the practice of scientific drawing: “On fine days, I devote a little time to the painstaking study of nature; in bad weather, I take a leaf or a plant as a basis and draw them. This inevitably leads me to find out their botanical names.
Among his works, the most famous are "Lectures on Art" (eng. Lectures of Art, 1870), "Artistic fiction: beautiful and ugly" (eng. Fiction: Fair and Foul), "English art" (eng. The Art of England) , "Modern Artists" (eng. Modern Painters, 1843-1860), as well as "The Nature of the Gothic" (eng. The Nature of Gothic, 1853), the famous chapter from the "Stones of Venice", subsequently published by William Morris as a separate book. In total, Ruskin wrote fifty books, seven hundred articles and lectures.
Ruskin did much to strengthen the position of the Pre-Raphaelites, for example, in the article "Pre-Raphaelitism" (eng. Pre-Raphaelitism, 1851), and also greatly influenced the anti-bourgeois pathos of the movement. In addition, he "discovered" for his contemporaries William Turner, a painter and graphic artist, a master of landscape painting. In Modern Artists, Ruskin defends Turner from criticism and calls him "a great artist whose talent I was able to appreciate during my lifetime."
Ruskin also proclaimed the principle of “loyalty to Nature”: “Is it not because we love our creations more than His, we value colored glasses, and not bright clouds ... And, making fonts and erecting columns in honor of That ... we imagine that we will be forgiven our shameful neglect of the hills and streams with which He endowed our habitation - the earth. As an ideal, he put forward medieval art, such masters of the Early Renaissance as Perugino, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini.
The rejection of mechanization and standardization was reflected in Ruskin's theory of architecture, an emphasis on the significance of the medieval Gothic style. Ruskin praised the Gothic style for its attachment to nature and natural forms, as well as the desire to make the worker happy, which he, like the "Gothic revivalists" led by William Morris, saw in the Gothic aesthetic. The nineteenth century tries to reproduce some Gothic forms (lancet arches, etc.), which is not enough to express the true Gothic feeling, faith and organicism. The Gothic style embodies the same moral values that Ruskin sees in art - the values of strength, firmness and inspiration.
Classical architecture, in contrast to Gothic architecture, expresses moral emptiness, regressive standardization. Ruskin links classical values to modern developments, in particular to the demoralizing effects of the Industrial Revolution, reflected in architectural phenomena such as the Crystal Palace. Much of Ruskin’s work is devoted to architecture, but he expressed his ideas most expressively in the essay “The Nature of Gothic” from the second volume of The Stones of Venice in 1853, published at the height of the storm in London. Style Battles. In addition to an apology for the Gothic style, he criticized the division of labor and the unregulated market advocated by the English political economy school.
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, Writer , Art theorist , Literary critic , Poet
John Ruskin (Eng. John Ruskin; February 8, 1819, London - January 20, 1900, Brentwood) - English writer, artist, art theorist, literary critic and poet. He had a great influence on the development of art history and aesthetics in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries.
John Ruskin was born on February 8, 1819 in the family of a wealthy Scottish sherry merchant D. J. Ruskin. The atmosphere of religious piety reigned in the family, which had a significant impact on the subsequent views of the writer.
Childhood often holds in its weak fingers the truth that adults cannot hold with their courageous hands and the discovery of which is the pride of later years.
Ruskin John
Even in his youth, he traveled a lot, and travel diaries necessarily included notes on geological formations in the landscape of the countries visited. He entered the University of Oxford, and later he taught a course in art history there.
Having become a lecturer, he insisted on the need for the study of geology and biology by future landscape painters, as well as on the introduction of the practice of scientific drawing: “On fine days, I devote a little time to the painstaking study of nature; in bad weather, I take a leaf or a plant as a basis and draw them. This inevitably leads me to find out their botanical names.
Among his works, the most famous are "Lectures on Art" (eng. Lectures of Art, 1870), "Artistic fiction: beautiful and ugly" (eng. Fiction: Fair and Foul), "English art" (eng. The Art of England) , "Modern Artists" (eng. Modern Painters, 1843-1860), as well as "The Nature of the Gothic" (eng. The Nature of Gothic, 1853), the famous chapter from the "Stones of Venice", subsequently published by William Morris as a separate book. In total, Ruskin wrote fifty books, seven hundred articles and lectures.
In order for people to find happiness in their work, three conditions are necessary: the work must be within their abilities, it must not be exhausting, and it must necessarily be successful.
Ruskin John
Ruskin married Effie Gray in 1848. The marriage was unsuccessful, the couple separated and in 1854 got a divorce, and in 1855 Effie married the artist John Everett Millais. The reason for the divorce was that the spouses did not enter into marital relations. The Canadian film The Passion of John Ruskin is dedicated to this story.
Ruskin did a lot to strengthen the positions of Pre-Raphaelitism, for example, in the article “Pre-Raphaelitism” (Eng. Pre-Raphaelitism, 1851), and also “discovered” for contemporaries William Turner, a painter and graphic artist, a master of landscape painting, who recognized only a photographically accurate depiction of nature .
In Modern Artists, Ruskin defends Turner from criticism and calls him "a great artist whose talent I was able to appreciate during my lifetime."
The life of all the greatest men was expressed more in their aspirations and efforts than in the fulfillment of these aspirations; wherefore, they can be justly judged by their aspirations and feelings, and not by what they managed to do.
Ruskin John
Ruskin also proclaimed the principle of “fidelity to Nature”: “Is it not because we love our creations more than His, we value colored glasses, not bright clouds ... And, making fonts and erecting columns in honor of That ... we imagine that we will be forgiven our shameful neglect of the hills and streams with which He endowed our habitation - the earth.
As an ideal, he put forward medieval art, such masters of the Early Renaissance as Perugino, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini.
Rejection of mechanization and standardization was reflected in Ruskin's theory of architecture, emphasizing the importance of the medieval Gothic style. Ruskin praised the Gothic style for its reverence for nature and natural forms.
It is not the seas that separate peoples, but ignorance, not differences in language, but hostile relations.
Ruskin John
The nineteenth century tries to reproduce some Gothic forms (lancet arches, etc.), which is not enough to express the true Gothic feeling, faith and organicism. The Gothic style embodies the same moral values that Ruskin sees in art. - the values of strength, firmness and inspiration.
Classical architecture, in contrast to Gothic architecture, expresses moral emptiness, regressive standardization. Ruskin connects classical values with modern development, in particular with the demoralizing effects of the industrial revolution, reflected in such architectural phenomena as the Crystal Palace.
Many of Ruskin's works are devoted to issues of architecture, but he reflected his ideas most expressively in the essay "The Nature of Gothic" from the second volume of The Stones of Venice (1853).
Some riches are heavy from shed human tears, just as badly harvested crops are heavy from untimely rains.
Ruskin John
In the late 1850s - 1860s, during a period of acute religious crisis, Ruskin experienced a passionate love for a girl, and then a girl from an extremely religious Protestant family, Rosa La Touche (1848-1875).
He met her in 1858, made an offer eight years later and was finally refused at the insistence of her parents in 1872. Three years later, Rose died of an unknown cause. The story of this love is mentioned more than once in Nabokov's Lolita. In the 1870s, on this basis, Ruskin's attacks of mental illness became more frequent, in 1885 he retired to his estate, which he did not leave until his death.
Selected canvases
* “Cascades of madness. Chamonix (1849) Birmingham, Art Gallery
* Gneiss Rocks at Glenfinlas (1853) Oxford, Ashmoleon Museum
* Iris Fiorentina (1871) Oxford, Ashmoleon Museum
Oh those geologists. With every blow of their hammers, I feel the bible being destroyed.
Ruskin John
Bibliography
* The Poetry of Architecture (1838)
* The King of the Golden River (1841)
* "Modern Artists" (Modern Painters, 1843)
* "Modern Painters 2" (Modern Painters II, 1846)
* The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849)
* Pre-Raphaelism (1851)
* The Stones of Venice I (1851)
* The Stones of Venice II and III (1853)
*Architecture and Painting (1854)
*Modern Painters III (1856)
* The Harbors of England (1856)
* Political Economy of Art (1857)
* The Two Paths (1859)
* The Elements of Perspective (1859)
*Modern Painters IV (1860)
* Unto This Last (1862)
*Munera Pulveris (Essays on Political Economy) (1862)
* Cestus of Aglaia (1864)
* Sesame and Lilies (1865)
* The Ethics of the Dust (1866)
* The Crown of Wild Olive (1867)
* Time and Tide (1867)
* The Flamboyant Architecture of the Somme (1869)
* The Queen of the Air (1869)
* Verona and its Rivers (1870)
*Aratra Pentelici (1872)
* The Eagle's Nest (1872)
* Love's Meinie (1873)
* Ariadne Florentina (1873)
* Val d'Arno (1874)
* The Ethics of the Dust 1875
* Mornings in Florence (1877)
* "Fiction: the beautiful and the ugly" (Fiction, Fair and Foul, 1880)
* Deucalion (1883)
*St Mark's Rest (1884)
* Storm-Clouds of the Nineteenth Century (1884)
*Bible of Amiens (1885)
* Proserpina (1886)
* Praeterita (1889)
John Ruskin (or Ruskin) was distinguished by many talents. He was a prominent art theorist, painter, literary critic, poet and writer, with whose prose even Marcel Proust fell in love. In total, Ruskin wrote fifty books and seven hundred articles and lectures, most of which are devoted to art in general and architecture in particular.
John Ruskin was born on February 8, 1819 in London. His grandfather was a chintz trader, and his father, who was a co-owner of a sherry import company, sold this product quite successfully. Despite the mundane occupation, John's father loved art, which undoubtedly influenced his son, as well as a strict religious upbringing, thanks to which John developed a religious and ethical understanding of life.
When John was thirteen, the family began to travel extensively in France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. During his travels, Ruskin kept a travel diary, in which he necessarily described the geological formations in the countries he visited. Much later, becoming a lecturer at Oxford University, where he himself studied, he insisted that future landscape painters must study biology and geology, as well as practice scientific drawing: “ On fine days I devote a little time to the painstaking study of nature; in bad weather, I take a leaf or a plant as a basis and draw them. This inevitably leads me to find out their botanical names.».
Ruskin himself studied drawing with the artists Copley Fielding and Harding and under their guidance became a skilled draftsman, however, he was mainly fascinated by architecture, especially Gothic. As for the University of Oxford, Ruskin's studies in geology with Buckland had to be interrupted due to suspicions of tuberculosis. However, the fears of doctors did not affect other hobbies. Even before this episode, Ruskin's first publication, The Poetry of Architecture, appears in the Architectural Journal; In 1839, Ruskin received the Newdige Prize for the best poem in English. At the end of the thirties, Ruskin, on the generous support allocated by his father, begins to collect paintings by William Turner, whose work he has been passionate about for a long time. At the age of seventeen, Ruskin even wrote an essay in defense of Turner, which years later resulted in the multi-volume work Modern Artists - the first volume appeared in 1843. Turner himself, they say, hardly caught the meaning of his ardent admirer's eulogies and did not even support the publication of the first of the articles about himself, which Ruskin's father sent to the artist.
In 1845, Ruskin traveled to Switzerland and Italy, where he was delighted with the religious painting of Fra Angelico and Tintoretto. This enthusiasm resulted in the second volume of Modern Artists, published in 1846. Three years later, Ruskin published an essay dedicated to another of his passions - Gothic architecture - "The Seven Lights of Architecture". Labor, in general, remained unclaimed due to Ruskin's naive utopianism and old-fashionedness against the background of the avant-garde, social revolutions and the progress of science and technology.
Ruskin, at the insistence of his father, continues to write the work "Modern Artists", lectures on "Political Economy in Art" at the University of Manchester, writes a book on this topic "Last as First". He supports education reforms, especially in the field of crafts, advocates for universal employment and assistance to the disabled and the elderly. In 1871, he began publishing Fors Clavigera, a monthly publication for the workers of Great Britain, in which he tells of the founding of the Company of St. George, which was supposed to create workshops where only manual labor was used, to reveal the beauty of handicraft to workers, and also to nullify the consequences of the industrial revolution.
John Ruskin at work in Brentwood, 1881.
In 1851, the Academy hosted an exhibition of the Pre-Raphaelites, which was received rather hostilely. Ruskin came to their defense, wrote the article "Pre-Raphaelitism" and became friends with the most prominent representative of the movement, John Everett Milles, to whom Ruskin's wife Effie Gray later left. At the same time, in the fifties and sixties, Ruskin is in love with Rosa La Touche, who at the time of the acquaintance was only ten years old. When the girl turned 18, Ruskin proposes to her, but is refused. In 1872, he tries again, and is again refused, this time definitively. Three years later, for an unknown reason, Rosa dies, and on this basis, Ruskin's mental illness attacks, which began back in the sixties, become more frequent, in 1885 he retires to his estate, which he does not leave until his death in 1900.
Poet and literary critic. John Ruskin is a multifaceted person. His works influenced the further development of art history in the second half of the 19th century.
John Ruskin was born on February 8, 1819 in London. John grew up and was brought up in the framework of evangelical piety. John's father loved and often traveled with his family to many countries (France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland). Ruskin studied drawing, his teachers were English artists K. Fielding and J. D. Harding. John Ruskin depicted mostly architectural objects, greatly admired the Gothic architecture, which he also painted.
In 1836, John Ruskin entered Christ Church College, Oxford University. Studied geology with W. Buckland. When John was 21 years old, his father gave him a generous allowance. So the two of them could collect paintings written by J. Turner (1775-1851). John Ruskin was awarded the Newdigate Prize for writing the best poem in English (1839), but in the spring of the following year his university studies had to be interrupted due to illness: doctors recognized the symptoms of tuberculosis.
Ruskin still wrote a lot, supplementing the essay in which he defended Turner, written by him at the age of seventeen. The result was a five-volume collection - "Modern Artists" (printing of the first volume in 1843).
Closely studying the foundations of Gothic architecture, in 1849 John Ruskin published his essay The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Not a single generation resorted to his ideas of "architectural honesty" and the emergence of ornamentality from ordinary natural forms.
Over time, John Ruskin began to consider Venetian architecture. Together with his wife, he even went to Venice, where he collected material for a book. In "The Stones of Venice" he intended to reveal more the ideas set forth in the "Seven Lamps". The book came out in the midst of a kind of battle of styles and became an integral part of the program of the supporters of the Gothic revival (headed by W. Morris).
In 1869 John Ruskin was given the title of the first honorary professor of art at the University of Oxford. In Oxford, the writer worked hard, was able to prepare an amazing collection of works of art for students. In 1878 he was overcome by a severe mental illness, but he was able to write the last and most interesting book - the autobiography "The Past" (1885-1889). The writer died in Brantwood on January 20, 1900.
