John Ruskin (8 February 1819 — 20 January 1900) was an English writer, painter, and polymath of the Victorian era. He is best known for his work as an art critic and social critic and is known to be one of the three "Victorian sages", alongside Matthew Arnold and Thomas Carlyle.
Ruskin was born on 8 February 1819 in London, the only child of John James Ruskin, a prosperous wine merchant and art lover, and Margaret Cox Ruskin, the daughter of a publican in Croydon. John was largely educated at home and was shaped by his parents' ambitious yet contrasting influences. John James instilled into his son a fondness for Romanticism through his collection of contemporary watercolours, and they shared a passion for the works of Lord Byron, William Shakespeare, and Walter Scott. Margaret, for her part, was a devout evangelical Protestant and taught her son to read the Bible from beginning to end, having him commit large portions of it to memory. This had a profound impact on his writing. His homeschooling was also supplemented with regular tours to Europe in his father's company, further cultivating his literary and aesthetic tastes. One of the biggest influences on Ruskin was Joseph Mallord William Turner, and he wrote an unpublished letter replying to a critique of Turner's painting in 1836.
In 1836, Ruskin entered Christ Church, Oxford, during which he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry, but because of his poor health, he could not sit for an honours degree, and he was withdrawn from Oxford to travel with his parents. Before returning, Ruskin was challenged to write a fairy tale by Euphemia Chalmers "Effie" Gray, whom he would later marry, and the result was The King Of The Golden River (1841, published 1850). He then returned to Oxford in 1842 and took up his project of defending the work of Turner; he was awarded an uncommon honorary double fourth-class degree in recognition of his achievements.
In 1843, Ruskin published the first of the five volumes of Modern Painters, a work written in defence of Turner. The other volumes survey the main traditions of European painting from Giotto to the 19th century and would preoccupy him for the next 17 years. In the meantime, he also wrote two works on Gothic architecture: The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), in which he establishes seven moral principles to guide architectural practice, and The Stones of Venice (1851, 1853), a history of Venetian architecture.
In 1848, Ruskin married Effie Gray, but after seven years, the marriage was annulled on the grounds that it was not consummated; Effie would later marry John Everett Millais, a Pre-Raphaelite painter, in 1855. In 1858, Ruskin met Rose la Touche, a student with whom he would eventually fall in love. It was also in that year when he experienced an "unconversion" in Turin.
In 1860, Ruskin became disillusioned with a society in which poverty was rampant and the poor was exploited, so he published a series of essays attacking the science of political economy called Unto this Last (1862). He followed this up with Munera Pulveris the following year, proposing some ways of potential economic reform.
In 1866, Ruskin proposed to Rose la Touche, but she postponed her decision until she came of age to decide for herself. In 1872, she fell ill physically and mentally, finally refusing Ruskin's proposal. She was willing to marry if the marriage remained unconsummated because her doctors told her she was unfit to marry, but Ruskin declined to enter another such marriage for fear of its effect on his reputation. In the meantime, Ruskin continued to write and lecture. He became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford in 1869, and he began publishing Fors Clavigera, a monthly magazine in which he developed his idiosyncratic cultural theories, two years later. He also took part in many practical projects, many of which he directed by way of his Utopian pressure group, the Guild of St. George, and he eventually returned to the Christian faith in 1874 after living in a sacristan's cell.
In 1875, Rose La Touche died insane, and a devastated Ruskin attempted to take solace in Spiritualism, trying to make contact with her spirit. Rose's death is considered to be the cause of Ruskin's bouts of madness from around 1878. He began publishing his autobiography Praeterita in 1885, but it came to a premature conclusion four years later when he was struck with another attack of madness. He lived on, withdrawn and inactive, until 20 January 1900.
He is not to be confused with Nardwuar the Human Serviette, a Canadian media personality whose real name is also John Ruskin.
Major Works:
- The King Of The Golden River (1841, published 1850):
- Modern Painters (1843–60):
- The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849):
- The Stones of Venice (1851-53):
- The Two Paths (1859):
- Unto This Last (1860, published as a book 1862):
- Sesame and Lilies (1865):
- The Crown of Wild Olive (1866):
- Fors Clavigera (1871-84):
- Præterita (1885-89):
