Unto this last: two hundred years of John Ruskin

Abstract

This book presents an innovative portrait of John Ruskin (1819-1900) as artist, art critic, social theorist, educator, and ecological campaigner. Ruskin's juvenilia reveal an early embrace of his lifelong interests in geology and botany, art, poetry, and mythology. His early admiration of Turner led him to identify the moral power of close looking. In The Stones of Venice, illustrated with his own drawings, he argued that the development of architectural style revealed the moral condition of society. Later, Ruskin pioneered new approaches to teaching and museum practice. Influential worldwide, Ruskin's work inspired William Morris, founders of the Labour Party, and Mahatma Gandhi. Through thematic essays and detailed discussions of his works, this book argues that, complex and contradictory, Ruskin's ideas are of urgent importance today.00Exhibition: Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA (05.09.-08.12.2019).

Contents

Director's foreword / Ann Meyers -- Essays -- Introduction : John Ruskin. seer of the storm-cloud / Tim Barringer -- Mountains in miniature : Ruskin's sketching and empowerment / Tara Contractor -- "Books of the Hour" : Ruskin's first editions / Victoria Hepburn -- On the anvil : John Ruskin and the work of iron / Judith Stapleton -- Epilogue : Dust to dust, Jorge Otero-Pailos after John Ruskin / Courtney Skipton Long -- Catalogue / Tim Barringer [and 7 others] --The nature of seeing -- Going to nature -- Professor Ruskin -- Ruskin's global legacy.