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John Ruskin PDF

254 Pages·2015·2.921 MB·English
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John Ruskin Titles in the series Critical Lives present the work of leading cultural figures of the modern period. Each book explores the life of the artist, writer, philosopher or architect in question and relates it to their major works. In the same series Georges Bataille Stuart Kendall Franz Kafka Sander L. Gilman Charles Baudelaire Rosemary Lloyd Frida Kahlo Gannit Ankori Simone de Beauvoir Ursula Tidd Yves Klein Nuit Banai Samuel Beckett Andrew Gibson Akira Kurosawa Peter Wild Walter Benjamin Esther Leslie Lenin Lars T. Lih John Berger Andy Merrifield Stéphane Mallarmé Roger Pearson Jorge Luis Borges Jason Wilson Gabriel García Márquez Stephen M. Hart Constantin Brancusi Sanda Miller Karl Marx Paul Thomas Bertolt Brecht Philip Glahn Henry Miller David Stephen Calonne Charles Bukowski David Stephen Calonne Yukio Mishima Damian Flanagan William S. Burroughs Phil Baker Eadweard Muybridge Marta Braun John Cage Rob Haskins Vladimir Nabokov Barbara Wyllie Fidel Castro Nick Caistor Georgia O’Keeffe Nancy J. Scott Coco Chanel Linda Simon Pablo Neruda Dominic Moran Noam Chomsky Wolfgang B. Sperlich Octavio Paz Nick Caistor Jean Cocteau James S. Williams Pablo Picasso Mary Ann Caws Salvador Dalí Mary Ann Caws Edgar Allan PoeKevin J. Hayes Guy Debord Andy Merrifield Ezra Pound Alec Marsh Claude Debussy David J. Code Marcel Proust Adam Watt Fyodor Dostoevsky Robert Bird John Ruskin Andrew Ballantyne Marcel Duchamp Caroline Cros Jean-Paul Sartre Andrew Leak Sergei Eisenstein Mike O’Mahony Erik Satie Mary E. Davis Michel Foucault David Macey Arthur Schopenhauer Peter B. Lewis Mahatma Gandhi Douglas Allen Susan Sontag Jerome Boyd Maunsell Jean Genet Stephen Barber Gertrude Stein Lucy Daniel Allen Ginsberg Steve Finbow Leon Trotsky Paul Le Blanc Derek Jarman Michael Charlesworth Richard Wagner Raymond Furness Alfred Jarry Jill Fell Simone Weil Palle Yourgrau James Joyce Andrew Gibson Ludwig Wittgenstein Edward Kanterian Carl Jung Paul Bishop Frank Lloyd Wright Robert McCarter John Ruskin Andrew Ballantyne reaktion books À Cyrille Capelli et son équipe Published by Reaktion Books Ltd 33Great Sutton Street London ec1v 0dx, uk www.reaktionbooks.co.uk First published 2015 Copyright © Andrew Ballantyne2015 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain, Glasgow A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library isbn 978 1 78023 429 8 Contents Introduction 7 1 A Start in Life 11 2 Turner and the Picturesque 48 3 The Pre-Raphaelites 80 4 The Seven Lamps of Architecture 118 5 Lapping Waves, Living Stones 143 6 Reform 165 7 Influence 203 References 223 Bibliography 241 Acknowledgements 249 Photo Acknowledgements 251 John Ruskin, c. 1879, at the age of 60, frontispiece to Ada Earland, Ruskin and his Circle(1910). Introduction I remember as a teenager going round an exhibition of water- colours in Kendal with an aged great-aunt, who in the family was known as Tante. She was not well educated – her father had not believed in educating girls – but she had a well-developed sense of her own gentility. At the time of my visit she had cataracts and did not see particularly clearly. We came to a study of rocks and trees by John Ruskin: roots of trees fused with rocks, intensely detailed but not composed into a conventional image. ‘I don’t like this modern stuff’, said Tante. ‘That’s not modern,’ I said, ‘it’s by Ruskin.’ ‘Oh well,’ she said with a sigh, ‘it must be marvellous.’ She said it without a trace of irony: she knew Ruskin’s reputation, and she knew that the image in the frame must be good if he had done it, but she could not see the goodness and the cataracts served to cloud the issue of whether it was her eyes or her critical faculties that were letting her down. Ruskin’s reputation in Kendal was then, and I think remains, that of a faded celebrity. He had lived at Brantwood, about 30miles away, by a winding road that has to go round the largest lake in England – half that distance for a bird. In the other direction, at Kirkby Lonsdale, there is a plaque to commemorate the fact that Ruskin once admired the view there. By Derwentwater, near Keswick, there is a monument on the spot where Ruskin said he 7 could first remember seeing the world. Locally he has a reputation for being famous that outweighs actual contact with his works. His writings are still with us, but they are little read. The big ideas are diffused across his writings, often appearing as lengthy ‘asides’, digressing from the topic that is announced in the title, such as the lengthy geological treatment of the Matterhorn in Modern Painters. His rhetoric can have tumultuous power. He could call on all the agencies of Heaven to make the Earth tremble and to persuade you to change your mind. There is much careful quiet thought besides, and the moments of grandstanding are less admired now than when Ruskin wrote them. The writings made Ruskin’s one of the key voices in nineteenth-century culture. He made pronouncements on art and architecture, and their roles in a worthwhile life – and people listened. They went to his lectures, bought his books, read his letters to the newspapers. Ruskin’s life was unusual and privileged, but his thoughts reached a mainstream audience. The eccentricity of his personal life has attracted film-makers, and he has done duty as a conspicuous example of the Victorian prude. His life was in the nineteenth century, and his behaviour unfolded in the bourgeois circles of that time. He did not always manage to conform with all the proprieties, but he absolutely belonged to his own time and culture – as we all do. The really remarkable thing about Ruskin’s thoughts and deeds are how often they escaped his own rarefied circumstances to speak to others outside his class and time. He was a profound moralist and very religious in his outlook; he tried to do the right thing for humanity rather for himself; he inherited a great fortune, and one way or another gave most of it away. He tried to bring wonder and an appreciation of beauty to the lives of the working classes in the new industrial towns. He decried mechanization and railways, and loved crafts- manship. He praised art that had good moral character, taking for granted that artists would strive for a flawless technique. 8

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