John Ruskin

John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy.
Ruskin’s writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He wrote essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, architectural structures and ornamentation. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art gave way in time to plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society.
Ruskin came to view his critique of political economy as his most central work, which also inspired the famous indian leader Mahatma Gandhi.Ruskin was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J. M. W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is “truth to nature”. From the 1850s, he championed the Pre-Raphaelites, who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly “letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain”, published under the title Fors Clavigera (18711884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.


Source:
Wikipedia

eBooks: A Joy For Ever | Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture | Ariadne Florentina | Arrows of the Chace, Vol. 1 of 2 | Arrows of the Chace, Vol. 2 | Fors Clavigera (Volume 3 of 8) | Fors Clavigera, Vol. 1 of 8 | Frondes Agrestes | Giotto and his works in Padua | Hortus Inclusus | Lectures on Architecture and Painting | Lectures on Art | Lectures on Landscape | Letters to the Clergy | Love’s Meinie | Modern Painters Volume I (of V) | Modern Painters Volume II (of V) | Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) | Modern Painters, Volume V (of 5) | Modern Painters. Vol. III (of V) | Mornings in Florence | Of Vulgarity | On the Old Road, Vol. 1 (of 2) | On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) | Our Fathers Have Told Us | Proserpina, Volume 1 | Proserpina, Volume 2 | Saint Ursula | Selections From the Works of John Ruskin | Sesame and Lilies | Stones of Venice | The Crown of Wild Olive | The Eagle’s Nest | The Elements of Perspective | The Harbours of England | The King of the Golden River | The King of the Golden River or the Black Brothers | The Pleasures of England | The Poetry of Architecture | The Queen of the Air | The Seven Lamps of Architecture | The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) | The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) | The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) | The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century | The Two Paths | Unto This Last and Other Essays on Political Economy | Val d’Arno

Works by John Ruskin: