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RUSKIN, JOHN (1819-1goo)
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See also:RUSKIN, See also: See also:Adam, received a See also:sound classical See also:education, and was well advised by his friend Dr See also: In his own memoirs he speaks much more of these than of any Ruskins, Tweddales, Adairs or Agnews. The child was brought up under a rigid See also:system of See also:nursing, See also:physical, moral and intellectual; kept without toys, not seldom whipped, watched See also:day and See also:night, but trained from See also:infancy in See also:music, See also:drawing, See also:reading aloud and observation of natural See also:objects. When he was four the family removed to a See also:house on See also:Herne See also: His first See also:letter is dated 1823, when he was only four. In it he corrects his aunt, who had put up the wooden pillars of his Waterloo See also:bridge " upside down." At five he was a book-See also:worm. At seven he began a See also:work in four volumes, with " See also:copper-plates printed and composed by a little boy, and also See also:drawn." His first poem, correct in See also:rhyme and See also:form, was written before he was seven. At nine he began " Eudosia, a poem of the Universe." From that year until his See also:Newdigate See also:Prize, at the age of twenty, he wrote enormous quantities of verse, and began dramas, romances and imitations of Byron, Pope, Scott and See also:Shelley. What remain of these effusions have no See also:special quality except See also:good sense, refined feeling, accuracy of phrase, and a curious correctness of See also:accent and rhythm. Of true See also:poetry in the higher sense there is hardly a single See also:line. His schooling was irregular and not successful. At the age of eleven he was taught Latin and See also:Greek by Dr See also:Andrews, a See also:scholar of Glasgow University. About the same See also:time he had lessons in drawing and in oil See also:painting from See also:Runciman. See also:French and See also:Euclid were taught by Rowbotham. At fifteen he was sent for two years to the day-school of the Rev. T. See also:Dale of See also:Peckham, and at seventeen he attended some courses in
literature at King's See also:College, London. In painting he had lessons from See also:Copley See also:Fielding and afterwards from J. D. See also:Harding. But in the incessant travelling, drawing, See also:collecting specimens and composition in prose and verse he had gained but a very moderate classical and mathematical knowledge when he matriculated at See also:Oxford; nor could be ever learn to write tolerable Latin. As a boy he was active, lively and docile; a good See also: To the See also:gay young beauty, See also:familiar with Parisian society, the raw and serious youth was not a possible parti. She was sent to an English school, and he occasionally saw her. His unspoken passion lasted about three years, when she married the See also:Baron See also:Duquesne. See also:Writing as an old man, long after her See also:death, Ruskin speaks of his early love without any sort of rapture. But it is clear that it deeply coloured his See also:life, and led to the dangerous illness which for some two years interrupted his studies and made him a wanderer over See also:Europe.
As the father was resolved that John should have everything that See also:money and pains could give, and was one day to be a See also:bishop at least, he entered him at See also:Christ See also: Two years of See also:ill-health and See also:absence from home ensued. And he did not become " a See also:Graduate of Oxford " until 1842, in his twenty-fourth year, five years after his first entrance at the university. In fact, his desultory school and college life had been little more than an interruption and hindrance to his real education—the study of nature, of art and of literature. Long before Ruskin published books he had appeared in See also:print. In See also: It was vehemently attacked by the critics, and coolly received by the painters. Even Turner was somewhat disconcerted; but the painter was now known to both Ruskins, and they freely bought his pictures. The family then went again to the Alps, that John might study See also:mountain formation and ",Truth " in landscape. In 1845 he was again abroad in See also:Italy, working on his Modern Painters, the second See also:volume of which appeared in 1846. He had now plunged into the study of See also:Bellini and the Venetian school, Fra See also:Angelico and the early Tuscans, and he visited See also:Lucca, See also:Pisa, See also:Florence, See also:Padua, See also:Verona and See also:Venice, passionately devoting himself to architecture, See also:sculpture and painting in each city of See also:north Italy. He wrote a few essays for the Quarterly See also:Review and other See also:periodicals, and in 1849 (aet. 30) he published The Seven Lamps of Architecture, with his own etchings, which greatly increased the reputation acquired by his Modern Painters.
On the loth of See also:April 1848, a day famous in the history of See also:Chartism, Ruskin was married at Perth to Euphemia See also:Chalmers See also: No particulars of their life have been made public. In 1854 his wife left him, obtained a See also:nullification of the marriage under Scots See also:law, and ultimately became the wife of John See also:Everett See also:Millais. John Ruskin returned to his parents, with whom he resided till their death; and neither his marriage nor the annulling of it seems to have affected seriously his See also:literary career. Ruskin's architectural studies, of which The Seven Lamps was the first See also:fruit, turned him from Turner and Modern Painters. He planned a book about Venice in 1845, and The Stones of Venice was announced in 1849 as in preparation. After intense study in Italy and at home, early in 1851 (the year of the Great See also:Exhibition in London) the first volume of The Stones of Venice appeared (aet. 32). It was by no means a See also:mere antiquarian and See also:artistic study. It was a See also:concrete expansion of the ideas of The Seven Lamps—that the buildings and art of a See also:people are the expression of their religion, their morality, their See also:national aspirations and social habits. It was, as See also:Carlyle wrote to the author, " a See also:sermon in stones," "a singular sign of the times," " a new See also:Renaissance." It appeared in the same year with the Construction of Sheepfolds—a plea for the See also:reunion of See also:Christian churches—in the same year with the essay on Pre-Raphaelitism, the year of Turner's death (19th See also:December). The Stones of Venice was illustrated with engravings by some of the most refined artists of his time. The author spent a See also:world of pains in having these brought up to the highest perfection of the re-productive art, and began the system of exquisite See also:illustration, and those facsimiles of his own and other sketches, which make his See also:works rank so high in the catalogues and See also:price-lists of collectors. This delicate art was carried even farther in the later volumes of Modern Painters by the school of engravers whom Ruskin inspired and gathered See also:round him. And these now rare and coveted pieces remain to rebuke us for our modern preference for the See also:mechanical and unnatural See also:chiaroscuro of photogravure—the successor and destroyer of the graver's art. Although Ruskin was practised in drawing from the time that he could hold a See also:pencil, and had lessons in painting from some eminent artists, he at no time attempted to paint pictures. He said himself that he was unable to compose a picture, and he never sought to produce anything that he would See also:call a work of original art. His drawings, of which he produced an enormous quantity, were always intended by himself to be studies or memoranda of buildings or natural objects precisely as they appeared to his eye. Clouds, mountains, landscapes, towers, churches, trees, See also:flowers and herbs were drawn with, wonderful precision, minuteness of detail and delicacy of See also:hand, solely to recall some specific aspect of nature or art, of which he wished to retain a See also:record. In his See also:gift for recording the most subtle characters of architectural carvings and details, Ruskin has hardly been surpassed by the most distinguished painters. In 1853 The Stones of Venice was completed at Herne Hill, and he began a series of Letters and Notes on pictures and architecture. In this year (aet. 34) he opened the long series of public lectures wherein he came forward as an oral teacher and preacher, not a little to the alarm of his parents and amidst a See also:storm of controversy. The Edinburgh Lectures (See also:November 1853) treated Architecture, Turner, and Pre-Raphaelitism. The See also:Manchester Lectures (See also:July 1857) treated the moral and social uses of art, now embodied in A Joy for Ever. Some other lectures are reprinted in On the Old Road and The Two Paths (1859). These lectures did not prevent the issue of various Notes on the Royal See also:Academy pictures and the Turner collections; works on the Harbours of England (1856); on the Elements of Drawing (1857) ; the Elements of See also:Perspective (1859); and at last, after prolonged labour, the fifth and final volume of Modern Painters was published in 186o (aet. 41). This marks an See also:epoch in the career of John Ruskin; and the year 186o closed the series of his works on art strictly so called; indeed, this was the last of his See also:regular works in substantial form. The last See also:forty years of his life were devoted to expounding his views, or rather his doctrines, on social and See also:industrial problems, on education, morals and religion, wherein art becomes an incidental and instrumental means to a higher and more spiritual life. And his teaching was embodied in an enormous series of Lectures, Letters, Articles, Selections and serial See also:pamphlets. These are now collected in upwards of thirty volumes in the final edition. The entire set of Ruskin's publications amounts to more than fifty works having distinctive titles. For some years before 186o Ruskin had been deeply stirred by reflecting on the See also:condition of all industrial work and the evils of modern society. His lectures on art had dealt bitterly with the mode in which buildings and other works were produced. In 1854 he joined Mr F. D. See also:Maurice, Mr T. See also:Hughes, and several of the new school of painters, in teaching classes at the Working Men's College. But it was not until 186o that he definitely began to propound a new social See also:scheme, denouncing the dogmas of See also:political See also:economy. Four lectures on this topic appeared in the Cornhill Magazine until the public disapproval led the editor, then W. M. See also:Thackeray, to See also:close the series. They were published in 1862 as Unto this Last. In the same year he wrote four papers in the same sense in See also:Fraser's Magazine, then edited by J. A. See also:Froude; but he in turn was compelled to suspend the issue. They were completed and ultimately issued under the See also:title Munera Pulveris. These two small books contain the earliest and most systematic of all Ruskin's efforts to depict a new social See also:Utopia: they contain a vehement repudiation of the orthodox formulas of the economists; and they are for the most See also:part written in a trenchant but See also:simple style, in striking contrast to the florid and discursive form of his works on art. In 1864 Ruskin's father died, at the age of 79, leaving his son a large fortune and a fine See also:property at See also:Denmark Hill. John still lived there with his mother, aged 83, infirm, and failing in sight, to whom came as a See also:companion their cousin, See also:Joanna Ruskin Agnew, afterwards Mrs See also:Arthur See also:Severn. At the end of the year 1864 Ruskin delivered at Manchester a new series of lectures—not on art, but on reading, education, woman's work and social morals—the expansion of his earlier See also:treatises on economic sophisms. This afterwards was included with a See also:Dublin lecture of 1868 under the fantastic title of See also:Sesame and Lilies (perhaps the most popular of his social essays), of which 44,000 copies were issued down to 19oo. He made this, in 1871, the first volume of his collected lectures and essays, the more popular and didactic form of his new Utopia of human life. It contains, with Fors, the most See also:complete See also:sketch of his conception of the place of woman in modern society. In the very characteristic See also:preface to the new edition of 1871 heproposes never to reprint his earlier works on art; disclaims many of the views they contained, and much in their literary form; and specially regrets the narrow Protestantism by which they were pervaded. In the year 1866 he published a little book about girls, and written for girls, a mixture of morals, See also:theology, See also:economics and See also:geology, under the title of See also:Ethics of the Dust; and this was followed by a more important and popular work, The See also:Crown of See also:Wild See also:Olive. This.. in its ultimate form contained lectures on " Work," " See also:Traffic," " See also:War," and the " Future of England." It was one of his most trenchant utterances, full of See also:fancy, wit, eloquence and elevated thought. But a more serious volume was Time and See also:Tide (1867), a series of twenty-five letters to a workman of See also:Sunderland, upon various points in the Ruskinian Utopia. This little collection of " Thoughts," written with wonderful vivacity, ingenuity and fervour, is the best See also:summary of the author's social and economic See also:programme, and contains some of his wisest and finest thoughts in the purest and most masculine English that he had at his command. In 1869 he issued the See also:Queen of the See also:Air, lectures on Greek myths, a subject he now took up, with some aid from the See also:late Sir C. Newton. It was followed by some other occasional pieces; and in the same year he was elected See also:Slade See also:professor of art in the university of Oxford. He now entered on his professorial career, which continued with some intervals down to 1884, and occupied a large part of his energies. His lectures began in February 187o, and were so crowded that they had to be given in the Sheldonian Theatre, and frequently were repeated to a second See also:audience. He was made honorary See also:fellow of Corpus Christi, and occupied rpoms in the college. In 1871 his mother died, at the age of 9o, and his cousin, See also:Miss Agnew, married Mr Arthur Severn. In that year he bought from Mr See also:Linton, Brantwood, an old cottage and property on Coniston See also:Lake, a lovely spot facing the mountain named the Old Man. He added greatly to the house and, property, and lived in it continuously until his death in 'goo. In 1871, one of the most eventful years of his life, be began Fors Clavigera, a small serial addressed to the working men of England, and published only by Mr See also:George See also:Allen, engraver, at Keston, in See also:Kent, at 7d., and afterwards at See also:rod., but without See also:discount, and not through the trade. This was a medley of social, moral and religious reflections interspersed with casual thoughts about persons, events and art. Fors means alternatively See also:Fate, Force or See also:Chance, bearing the Clavis, See also:Club, See also: It was continued with intervals down to 1884, and contained ninety-six letters or pamphlets, partly illustrated, which origin-ally filled eight volumes and are now reduced to four. The early years of his Oxford professorship were occupied by severe labour, sundry travels, attacks of illness and another cruel disappointment in love. In spite of this, he lectured, founded a museum of art, to which he gave pictures and drawings and £5000; he sought to form at Oxford a school of drawing; he started a See also:model See also:shop for the See also:sale of See also:tea, and model lodgings in Marylebone for poor tenants. At Oxford he set his pupils to work on making roads to improve the country. He now founded "St George's Guild," himself contributing £9000, the See also:object of which was to form a model industrial and social See also:movement, to buy lands, See also:mills and factories, and to start a model See also:industry on co-operative or Socialist lines. In connexion with this was a museum for the study of art and See also:science at See also:Sheffield. Ruskin himself endowed the museum with works of art and money; a full See also:account of is has been given in Mr E. T. See also:Cook's Studies in Ruskin (189o), which contains the particulars of his university lectures and of his economic and social experiments. It is unnecessary to follow out the history of these somewhat unpromising attempts. None of them came to much good, except the Sheffield museum, which is an established success, and is now transferred to the See also:town. In Fors, which was continued See also:month by month for seven years. Ruskin poured out his thoughts, proposals and rebukes on society and persons with inexhaustible fancy, wit, eloquence and freedom, until he was attacked with a violent brain malady in the See also:spring of 1878 (act, 59) ; and, although he recovered in a few months sufficiently to do some occasional work, he resigned his professorship early in 1879. The next three years he spent at Brantwood, mainly in retirement, and unhappy in finding nearly all his labours interrupted by his broken health. In 188o he was able to travel in See also:northern See also:France, and began the Bible of See also:Amiens, finished in 1885; and he issued occasional See also:numbers of Fors, the last of which appeared at See also:Christmas 1884. In 1882 he had another serious illness, with inflammation of the brain; but he recovered sufficiently to travel to his old haunts in France and Italy—his last visit. And in the following year he was re-elected professor at Oxford and resumed his lectures; but increasing brain excitement, and indignation at the See also:establishment of a laboratory to which See also:vivisection was admitted, led him to resign his Oxfdrd career, and he retired in 1884 to Brantwood, which he never left. He now suffered from frequent attacks of brain irritation and exhaustion, and had many causes of sorrow and disappointment. His lectures were published at intervals from 1870 to 1885 in Aratra Pentelici, The See also:Eagle's See also:Nest, Love's Meinie, See also:Ariadne Florentina, Val d'See also:Arno, Proserpina, See also:Deucalion, The See also:Laws of Fesole, The Bible of Amiens, The Art of England and The Pleasures of England, together with a series of 'pamphlets, letters, articles, notes, catalogues and circulars. In the retirement of Brantwood he began his last work, Praeterita, a desultory autobiography with See also:personal anecdotes and reminiscences. He was again attacked with the same See also:mental malady in 1885, which henceforth left him See also:fit only for occasional letters and notes. In 1887 it was found that he had exhausted (spent, and given away) the whole of the fortune he had received from his father, amounting, it is said, to some-thing like £200,000; and he was dependent on the vast and increasing sale of his works, which produced an See also:average income of £4000 a year, and at times on the sale of his pictures and realizable property. In 1872 a correspondent had remonstrated with hint in vain as to taking " See also:usury," i.e. See also:interest on capital See also:lent to others for use. In 1874 Ruskin himself had begun to doubt its lawfulness. In 1876 he fiercely assailed the practice of receiving interest or See also:rent, and he henceforth lived on his capital, which he gave freely to See also:friends, dependants, public See also:societies, charitable and social objects. The course of his opinions and his practice is fully explained in successive letters in Fors. Until 1889 he continued to write chapters of Praeterita, which was designed to record memories of his life down to the year 1875 (aet. 56). It was, in fact, only completed in regular series down to 1858 (aet. 39), with a See also:separate chapter as to Mrs Arthur Severn, and a fragment called Dilecta, containing letters and early recollections of friends, especially of Turner. These two books were published between 1885 and 1889; and except for occasional letters, notes and prefaces, they form the last writings of the author of Modern Painters. His literary career thus extends over fifty years. But he has left nothing more graceful, naive and pathetic than his early memories in Praeterita —a book which must rank with the most famous " Confessions " in any literature. The last ten years of his life were passed in complete retirement at Brantwood, in the loving care of the Severn family, to whom the See also:estate was transferred, with occasional visits from friends, but with no sustained work beyond See also:correspondence, the revision of his works, and a few notes and prefatory words to the books of others. He wished to withdraw his early art writings from circulation, but the public demand made this practically impossible. And now the whole of his writings are under the control of Mr George Allen, in several forms and prices, including a cheap series at 5s. per volume. The close of his life was one of entire See also:peace and See also:honour. He was loaded with the degrees of the See also:universities and membership of numerous societies and See also:academies. " Ruskin Societies " were founded in many parts of the See also:kingdom. His works were translated and read abroad, and had an enormous circulationin Great See also:Britain and the See also:United States. Many volumes about his career and opinions were issued in his lifetime both at home and abroad. His Both birthday, 8th February 1899, was celebrated by a burst of congratulations and addresses, both - public and private. His strength failed gradually: his mind remained feeble but unclouded, and his spirit serene. An attack of See also:influenza struck him down, and carried him off suddenly after only two days' illness, loth See also:January 1900. He was buried in Coniston See also:churchyard by his own See also:express wish, the family refusing the offer of a See also:grave in See also:Westminster See also:Abbey. Ruskin's literary life may be arranged in three divisions. From 1837 to ,86o (act. 18,to 4,) he was occupied mainly with the arts. From 186o to 1871 (aet. 41 to 52) he was principally occupied with social problems. From 1871 to 1885 (aet. 52 to 66) he was again drawn back largely to art by his lectures as professor, whilst prosecuting his social Utopia by speech, See also:pen, example and See also:purse. But the essential break in his life was in ,86o, which marks the close of his See also:main works on art and the opening of his See also:attempt to found a new social See also:gospel With regard to his views of art, he himself modified and revised them from time to time; and it is admitted that some of his judgments are founded on imperfect study and personal See also:bias. But the essence of his teaching has triumphed in effect, and has profoundly modified the views of artists, critics and the public, although it is but rarely accepted as complete Or final. The moral of his teaching—that all living art requires truth, nature, purity, earnestness—has now become the See also:axiom of all aesthetic work or See also:judgment. John Ruskin founded the See also:Reformation in Art. With regard to his economic and social ideas there is far less general concurrence, though the years that have passed since Unto this Last appeared have seen the See also:practical overthrow of the rigid plutonomy which he denounced. So, too, the vague and sentimental See also:socialism. which pervades Munera Pulveris, Time and Tide and Fors is now very much in the air, and represents the aspirations of many energetic reformers. But the negative part of Ruskin's teaching on economics, social and political problems, has been much more effective than the See also:positive part of his teaching. It must be admitted that nearly the whole of his practical experiments to realize his dreams have come to nothing, which is not unnatural, seeing his See also:defiance of the See also:ordinary habits and See also:standards of the world. A more serious defect was his practice of violently assailing philosophers, economists and men of science, of whom he knew almost nothing, and whom he perversely misunderstood: men such as Adam Smith, See also:Comte, See also: G. See also:Collingwood, his friend, See also:neighbour and secretary (1900). His See also:pupil, Mr E. T. Cook, published his Studies in Ruskin in 1890, with full details of his career as professor. Mr J. A. Hobson, in John Ruskin, Social Reformer (2nd ed., 1899), has elaborately discussed his social and economic teaching, and claims him as " the greatest social teacher of his age." An See also:analysis of his works has been written by Mrs See also:Meynell (1900). His art theories have been discussed by Professor See also: T. Cook, with Mr A. See also:Wedderburn, is the greatest of all the tributes of literary admiration. (F. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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