John Ruskin was best known as a Victorian art critic, social critic and writer whose works shaped British attitudes toward art, architecture and political economy. His first major work, the first volume of Modern Painters published in 1843, argued that J. M. W. Turner and modern landscape painters were superior to the Old Masters. His later essays Unto This Last, published in 1860-62, attacked laissez-faire economics and influenced figures including Gandhi, Tolstoy and the founders of the British Labour party.
When and where was John Ruskin born?
John Ruskin was born on the 8th of February 1819 at 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, London. The house was later demolished in 1969.
What was John Ruskin's relationship with J. M. W. Turner?
Ruskin became Turner's foremost public defender, arguing in the first volume of Modern Painters in 1843 that Turner surpassed the Old Masters in truth to nature. After Turner died in 1851, Ruskin spent an enormous amount of work cataloguing, framing and conserving the nearly 20,000 artworks Turner left to the British nation, completing the work in May 1858. He also donated 48 Turner drawings to the Ashmolean in Oxford in March 1861 and 25 more to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in May of the same year.
What was the Whistler libel trial and what was its outcome?
The Whistler libel trial arose after Ruskin, in the July 1877 issue of Fors Clavigera, accused James McNeill Whistler of asking two hundred guineas for "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face" regarding Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket. Whistler sued for libel and the trial ran on the 25th and the 26th of November 1878. The jury found in Whistler's favour but awarded him only a farthing in damages; court costs were split, and Whistler was bankrupt within six months of the verdict.
What was the Guild of St George founded by John Ruskin?
Ruskin founded the Guild of St George in 1871 as a communitarian protest against industrial capitalism, with himself as its Master and dedicated members called Companions. Its aims included farming land by traditional means and educating industrial workers through beautiful objects. The Guild's museum opened in the Sheffield district of Walkley in 1875, and the collection is now displayed at Sheffield's Millennium Gallery. The Guild continues to operate today as a charitable education trust with international membership.
How did John Ruskin influence Gandhi and the Labour movement?
Gandhi described the effect of Ruskin's Unto This Last as a "magic spell" and paraphrased the work in Gujarati under the title Sarvodaya, meaning "The Advancement of All". The economist John A. Hobson and many of the founders of the British Labour party also credited Unto This Last as a direct influence on their thinking. The essays, originally serialised in the Cornhill Magazine between August and November 1860, argued that political economy failed to account for the social bonds holding communities together and that all economies should be founded on social justice.