Stuart Eagles
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199602414
- eISBN:
- 9780191725050
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602414.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, History of Ideas
Ruskin often disparaged attempts to alleviate conditions in the cities, yet he financed the pioneering early housing experiments of Octavia Hill in London, and established a museum for working men in ...
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Ruskin often disparaged attempts to alleviate conditions in the cities, yet he financed the pioneering early housing experiments of Octavia Hill in London, and established a museum for working men in Sheffield. At the same time, he strove to promote the rural ideal and inspired the revival of some rural handicrafts. Both a self-proclaimed ‘violent Tory of the old school’ and a ‘communist’, the paradoxical John Ruskin, the leading Victorian art and social critic, inspired a younger generation with his political ideas and social experiments. A wide range of individuals, consciously indebted to him, engaged in social action designed to ameliorate the worst excesses of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century British industrial capitalism. Progressive political thinkers and social activists answered Ruskin's challenge to confront the ugliness and corruption of Victorian society, and to reject the hypocrisy of the utilitarian philosophy which underpinned it. This book is the first study to approach Ruskin's legacy in terms of the institutional and organisational contexts in which his ideas flourished. It recreates the associational culture of a network of influence which was united by a shared enthusiasm inspired by one man. The Guild of St. George embodied his social challenge, and provided a point of focus for his most loyal disciples. Many of the Oxford undergraduates inspired by his lectures, and his practical scheme to rebuild the road at Hinksey, helped to found and guide the university settlements. Ruskin societies emerged in the large cities to promote the study of his work and to effect civic reforms on Ruskinian lines. Many of the pioneers of the nascent Labour movement developed their political consciousnesses whilst reading his work. In the early life and career of John Howard Whitehouse, parliamentarian and educationist, these strands of influence combined, helping him to become Ruskin's truest disciple.Less
Ruskin often disparaged attempts to alleviate conditions in the cities, yet he financed the pioneering early housing experiments of Octavia Hill in London, and established a museum for working men in Sheffield. At the same time, he strove to promote the rural ideal and inspired the revival of some rural handicrafts. Both a self-proclaimed ‘violent Tory of the old school’ and a ‘communist’, the paradoxical John Ruskin, the leading Victorian art and social critic, inspired a younger generation with his political ideas and social experiments. A wide range of individuals, consciously indebted to him, engaged in social action designed to ameliorate the worst excesses of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century British industrial capitalism. Progressive political thinkers and social activists answered Ruskin's challenge to confront the ugliness and corruption of Victorian society, and to reject the hypocrisy of the utilitarian philosophy which underpinned it. This book is the first study to approach Ruskin's legacy in terms of the institutional and organisational contexts in which his ideas flourished. It recreates the associational culture of a network of influence which was united by a shared enthusiasm inspired by one man. The Guild of St. George embodied his social challenge, and provided a point of focus for his most loyal disciples. Many of the Oxford undergraduates inspired by his lectures, and his practical scheme to rebuild the road at Hinksey, helped to found and guide the university settlements. Ruskin societies emerged in the large cities to promote the study of his work and to effect civic reforms on Ruskinian lines. Many of the pioneers of the nascent Labour movement developed their political consciousnesses whilst reading his work. In the early life and career of John Howard Whitehouse, parliamentarian and educationist, these strands of influence combined, helping him to become Ruskin's truest disciple.
J. B. BULLEN
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128885
- eISBN:
- 9780191671722
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128885.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The Renaissance plays a prominent role in John Ruskin’s writing, where it is closely tied to ideas of architectural style. However, Ruskin expands its significance in ways of which his contemporary ...
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The Renaissance plays a prominent role in John Ruskin’s writing, where it is closely tied to ideas of architectural style. However, Ruskin expands its significance in ways of which his contemporary architectural historians had never dreamed. In Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice, the struggle waged between the ‘Nature of Gothic’ and the ‘Nature of Renaissance’ becomes the central event in the tragic drama of the West. It is one of the most curious paradoxes of the historiography of the Renaissance that though Ruskin forced the reputation of the art and culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to their lowest point ever, he simultaneously, albeit unwittingly, armed the Renaissance myth and gave it a secure position in the history of Europe. The actual word ‘renaissance’ seems to have become part of Ruskin’s vocabulary in 1846, when he went to the Continent to collect material on architecture.Less
The Renaissance plays a prominent role in John Ruskin’s writing, where it is closely tied to ideas of architectural style. However, Ruskin expands its significance in ways of which his contemporary architectural historians had never dreamed. In Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice, the struggle waged between the ‘Nature of Gothic’ and the ‘Nature of Renaissance’ becomes the central event in the tragic drama of the West. It is one of the most curious paradoxes of the historiography of the Renaissance that though Ruskin forced the reputation of the art and culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to their lowest point ever, he simultaneously, albeit unwittingly, armed the Renaissance myth and gave it a secure position in the history of Europe. The actual word ‘renaissance’ seems to have become part of Ruskin’s vocabulary in 1846, when he went to the Continent to collect material on architecture.
G. A. Bremner
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780197265871
- eISBN:
- 9780191772030
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265871.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This essay examines the long known but little studied relationship between E. A. Freeman and George Gilbert Scott (1811–78), one of the foremost architects of the Victorian age. Given his interests ...
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This essay examines the long known but little studied relationship between E. A. Freeman and George Gilbert Scott (1811–78), one of the foremost architects of the Victorian age. Given his interests in architecture, it was only natural that Freeman would be drawn within the ambit of the key practitioners of his day. It is argued that the close friendship that developed between Freeman and Scott from the early 1840s influenced appreciably the latter’s historical conception of architecture, thus affecting his architectural output, both theoretical and practical. Their engagement over such topical issues as the ‘national question’ in British architecture, John Ruskin, the cultural origins and significance of Gothic architecture, and the debate over style, particularly with regard to the New Government Offices (1857–68), Whitehall, are all discussed. It is concluded that Freeman’s ideas, despite being overshadowed by those of Ruskin and the Ecclesiologists, had a wider impact in the world of Victorian architecture than previously thought.Less
This essay examines the long known but little studied relationship between E. A. Freeman and George Gilbert Scott (1811–78), one of the foremost architects of the Victorian age. Given his interests in architecture, it was only natural that Freeman would be drawn within the ambit of the key practitioners of his day. It is argued that the close friendship that developed between Freeman and Scott from the early 1840s influenced appreciably the latter’s historical conception of architecture, thus affecting his architectural output, both theoretical and practical. Their engagement over such topical issues as the ‘national question’ in British architecture, John Ruskin, the cultural origins and significance of Gothic architecture, and the debate over style, particularly with regard to the New Government Offices (1857–68), Whitehall, are all discussed. It is concluded that Freeman’s ideas, despite being overshadowed by those of Ruskin and the Ecclesiologists, had a wider impact in the world of Victorian architecture than previously thought.
Christopher Prendergast
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691155203
- eISBN:
- 9781400846313
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691155203.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines éblouissement in Marcel Proust's Venice in À la recherche du temps perdu. It suggests that Proust's sensibility and imagination were “religious” insofar as they were animated by ...
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This chapter examines éblouissement in Marcel Proust's Venice in À la recherche du temps perdu. It suggests that Proust's sensibility and imagination were “religious” insofar as they were animated by the wish to intuit from a “feeling.” From the perspective of more rigorously conceived religious belief and doctrine, however, the chapter argues that such wish was pure folly, in many ways the blind alley of a writer for whom religious faith was not a plausible option, but who was also indifferent to what had come to replace religion—the secular narratives of “progress” underpinning the enlightenment project of “modernity.” That Proust suspected it was folly is clear from his indictment of John Ruskin with the charge of idolatry.Less
This chapter examines éblouissement in Marcel Proust's Venice in À la recherche du temps perdu. It suggests that Proust's sensibility and imagination were “religious” insofar as they were animated by the wish to intuit from a “feeling.” From the perspective of more rigorously conceived religious belief and doctrine, however, the chapter argues that such wish was pure folly, in many ways the blind alley of a writer for whom religious faith was not a plausible option, but who was also indifferent to what had come to replace religion—the secular narratives of “progress” underpinning the enlightenment project of “modernity.” That Proust suspected it was folly is clear from his indictment of John Ruskin with the charge of idolatry.
Amit Chaudhuri
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199260522
- eISBN:
- 9780191698668
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199260522.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This addendum shows the relationship between John Ruskin and D. H. Lawrence's works. It shows and relates the similarities of the two writers with their manner of deviating from the common and norm ...
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This addendum shows the relationship between John Ruskin and D. H. Lawrence's works. It shows and relates the similarities of the two writers with their manner of deviating from the common and norm of writing. They both exemplify defiance and non-conformity to perfection. This postscript also showcases the relationship that formed a bond between these writers. Lawrence, who read and greatly admired the work of Ruskin, absorbed and exemplified Ruskin's influence in his works. The chapter also discusses the irony and gives a critique of the two authors on the idea of perfection. They both display an opposition to the ideal and historical as shown in Ruskin's The Nature of Gothic and Lawrence's ‘unfinished’ poems and poetry.Less
This addendum shows the relationship between John Ruskin and D. H. Lawrence's works. It shows and relates the similarities of the two writers with their manner of deviating from the common and norm of writing. They both exemplify defiance and non-conformity to perfection. This postscript also showcases the relationship that formed a bond between these writers. Lawrence, who read and greatly admired the work of Ruskin, absorbed and exemplified Ruskin's influence in his works. The chapter also discusses the irony and gives a critique of the two authors on the idea of perfection. They both display an opposition to the ideal and historical as shown in Ruskin's The Nature of Gothic and Lawrence's ‘unfinished’ poems and poetry.
Ruth Livesey
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263983
- eISBN:
- 9780191734731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263983.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter traces this complex history of aestheticism, socialist aesthetics, and early modernism through a study of the development of William Morris's works in the later nineteenth century. ...
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This chapter traces this complex history of aestheticism, socialist aesthetics, and early modernism through a study of the development of William Morris's works in the later nineteenth century. Placing Morris's aesthetic development in the context of the writings of John Ruskin and Walter Pater, the discussion explore Morris's resistance to an emerging aesthetic that emphasized individual taste and consumption, rather than communal production. In his socialist essays, Signs of Change (1888) Morris developed an aesthetic continuum that enabled him to collapse the distinction between art and bodily labour and imagine a future of communal artistic production after the revolution. Both the radical nature of Morris's aesthetic and its preoccupation with productive masculinity are emphasized by contrasting his work to Wilde's essay ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’ (1891).Less
This chapter traces this complex history of aestheticism, socialist aesthetics, and early modernism through a study of the development of William Morris's works in the later nineteenth century. Placing Morris's aesthetic development in the context of the writings of John Ruskin and Walter Pater, the discussion explore Morris's resistance to an emerging aesthetic that emphasized individual taste and consumption, rather than communal production. In his socialist essays, Signs of Change (1888) Morris developed an aesthetic continuum that enabled him to collapse the distinction between art and bodily labour and imagine a future of communal artistic production after the revolution. Both the radical nature of Morris's aesthetic and its preoccupation with productive masculinity are emphasized by contrasting his work to Wilde's essay ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’ (1891).
J. B. BULLEN
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128885
- eISBN:
- 9780191671722
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128885.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The 1860s in England saw considerable developments in the Renaissance myth. The feelings of uncertainty about the moral basis of its achievements were swept away by a younger generation of writers ...
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The 1860s in England saw considerable developments in the Renaissance myth. The feelings of uncertainty about the moral basis of its achievements were swept away by a younger generation of writers who were attracted to its colour and to its individualism. John Ruskin’s antipathy, George Eliot’s picture of religious chaos, and even Robert Browning’s sense of moral ambiguity were replaced by John Addington Symonds’s celebration of Renaissance vigour and Walter Pater’s delight in its antinomianism. The Renaissance was discussed most publicly by Matthew Arnold, but ultimately his views were uncertain and wavering. Modification of the myth also took place privately. Algernon Charles Swinburne, reacting powerfully against the contemporary adulation of the Middle Ages for its piety and sanctity, espoused the fleshliness and the sinfulness of the Renaissance with outspoken pleasure. The year 1863 was a significant one in the British historiography of the Renaissance, because it brought together, in Oxford and London, members of the older generation who had helped shape the myth with those who were to be instrumental in its future development.Less
The 1860s in England saw considerable developments in the Renaissance myth. The feelings of uncertainty about the moral basis of its achievements were swept away by a younger generation of writers who were attracted to its colour and to its individualism. John Ruskin’s antipathy, George Eliot’s picture of religious chaos, and even Robert Browning’s sense of moral ambiguity were replaced by John Addington Symonds’s celebration of Renaissance vigour and Walter Pater’s delight in its antinomianism. The Renaissance was discussed most publicly by Matthew Arnold, but ultimately his views were uncertain and wavering. Modification of the myth also took place privately. Algernon Charles Swinburne, reacting powerfully against the contemporary adulation of the Middle Ages for its piety and sanctity, espoused the fleshliness and the sinfulness of the Renaissance with outspoken pleasure. The year 1863 was a significant one in the British historiography of the Renaissance, because it brought together, in Oxford and London, members of the older generation who had helped shape the myth with those who were to be instrumental in its future development.
Jennifer Scappettone
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231164320
- eISBN:
- 9780231537742
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231164320.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter discusses art critic John Ruskin's analysis of Venetian structures and their concrete “Foundations.” His cautionary tale of Venetian rise and decline is based on “frank inquiry,” as ...
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This chapter discusses art critic John Ruskin's analysis of Venetian structures and their concrete “Foundations.” His cautionary tale of Venetian rise and decline is based on “frank inquiry,” as opposed to “the indolence of imagination.” Deprived of Romantic embellishment, the fragments of Venice can be confronted in their immediacy—without resorting to habitual indulgence in their decay or to fanciful restoration, whether literal or literary. Ruskin's history is grounded on the actual stones of Venice, however battered or unstable. In tracking the evolution of Ruskin's methodology and style, the chapter affirms his struggle against the fact that modernity is, as art historian T. J. Clark argues, no longer characterized by a system of classification and control but, rather, by mixture, transgression, and ambiguity in the general conduct of life.Less
This chapter discusses art critic John Ruskin's analysis of Venetian structures and their concrete “Foundations.” His cautionary tale of Venetian rise and decline is based on “frank inquiry,” as opposed to “the indolence of imagination.” Deprived of Romantic embellishment, the fragments of Venice can be confronted in their immediacy—without resorting to habitual indulgence in their decay or to fanciful restoration, whether literal or literary. Ruskin's history is grounded on the actual stones of Venice, however battered or unstable. In tracking the evolution of Ruskin's methodology and style, the chapter affirms his struggle against the fact that modernity is, as art historian T. J. Clark argues, no longer characterized by a system of classification and control but, rather, by mixture, transgression, and ambiguity in the general conduct of life.
Paul Turner
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122395
- eISBN:
- 9780191671401
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122395.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
John Ruskin’s idea of goodness became humanistic rather than religious; but though he wrote and lectured on many subjects, including art, literature, science, economics, and mythology, it was always ...
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John Ruskin’s idea of goodness became humanistic rather than religious; but though he wrote and lectured on many subjects, including art, literature, science, economics, and mythology, it was always in the spirit and manner of this early performance. His style was at first orotund and over-explicit, with a strictly logical system of sections and subsections. In middle age he tried hard to be less showy, more lucid, and more concise. His later style was delightfully informal and spontaneous, but almost unstructured. As it came closer to a pure stream of consciousness, it made more and more puzzling connections between apparently unrelated topics. He produced nearly forty fat volumes, not easily envisaged as a single whole, but a kind of conspectus may be based on his own comparison of a picture to a window. In most of his works he was either looking at pictures and other artefacts, or looking through them at the world outside.Less
John Ruskin’s idea of goodness became humanistic rather than religious; but though he wrote and lectured on many subjects, including art, literature, science, economics, and mythology, it was always in the spirit and manner of this early performance. His style was at first orotund and over-explicit, with a strictly logical system of sections and subsections. In middle age he tried hard to be less showy, more lucid, and more concise. His later style was delightfully informal and spontaneous, but almost unstructured. As it came closer to a pure stream of consciousness, it made more and more puzzling connections between apparently unrelated topics. He produced nearly forty fat volumes, not easily envisaged as a single whole, but a kind of conspectus may be based on his own comparison of a picture to a window. In most of his works he was either looking at pictures and other artefacts, or looking through them at the world outside.
Vicky Albritton and Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226339986
- eISBN:
- 9780226340043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226340043.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
In 1887, John Ruskin suffered a fit of insanity and went on a shopping spree. This was a moment of personal calamity for the social critic who had staked much of his reputation on a withering ...
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In 1887, John Ruskin suffered a fit of insanity and went on a shopping spree. This was a moment of personal calamity for the social critic who had staked much of his reputation on a withering critique of Victorian consumer society. The first chapter of the book introduces Ruskin’s political economy to general readers. Special attention is given to his preoccupation with wealth as life, his commitment to satisfaction over growth, and his concern with the natural limits to economic development. The chapter also explores Ruskin’s move to the Lake District, including his patronage of handicrafts and his gardening projects, as well as his recurrent bouts of mental illness. Ruskin’s growing anxieties about atmospheric pollution and other environmental degradation – what he called the Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century – included not just a social and spiritual critique of consumer society, but also a precocious understanding of anthropogenic climate change.Less
In 1887, John Ruskin suffered a fit of insanity and went on a shopping spree. This was a moment of personal calamity for the social critic who had staked much of his reputation on a withering critique of Victorian consumer society. The first chapter of the book introduces Ruskin’s political economy to general readers. Special attention is given to his preoccupation with wealth as life, his commitment to satisfaction over growth, and his concern with the natural limits to economic development. The chapter also explores Ruskin’s move to the Lake District, including his patronage of handicrafts and his gardening projects, as well as his recurrent bouts of mental illness. Ruskin’s growing anxieties about atmospheric pollution and other environmental degradation – what he called the Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century – included not just a social and spiritual critique of consumer society, but also a precocious understanding of anthropogenic climate change.
Grace E. Lavery
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691183626
- eISBN:
- 9780691189963
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691183626.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter visits the United Kingdom with a Japanese literary tourist in the 1920s, Mikimoto Ryuzo. It searches alongside him for vestiges of Victorian art critic and social theorist John Ruskin's ...
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This chapter visits the United Kingdom with a Japanese literary tourist in the 1920s, Mikimoto Ryuzo. It searches alongside him for vestiges of Victorian art critic and social theorist John Ruskin's utopian sentiment in an interwar period from which such ideas have been wholly absented—Ruskin's complex ideas, spoken out of context and somewhat garbled, amounting to little more than passionately articulated commonplaces. In the spirit of Mikimoto's radical quaintness, the chapter next explores the convergence of Marx and Ruskin in Japan, contemporary writers on related themes whose historical coincidence in the London of the 1860s neatly frames the problem of historical major/minorness. Marx is generally considered a major writer to the extent to which he is excised from the context of Victorian Britain; Ruskin is a major writer only within that context, but rarely treated as major in the intellectual histories of Europe. Throughout Mikimoto's intellectual formation, and through his own engagements with style, this chapter attempts to catch a glimpse of a minor Marx and a minor Ruskin.Less
This chapter visits the United Kingdom with a Japanese literary tourist in the 1920s, Mikimoto Ryuzo. It searches alongside him for vestiges of Victorian art critic and social theorist John Ruskin's utopian sentiment in an interwar period from which such ideas have been wholly absented—Ruskin's complex ideas, spoken out of context and somewhat garbled, amounting to little more than passionately articulated commonplaces. In the spirit of Mikimoto's radical quaintness, the chapter next explores the convergence of Marx and Ruskin in Japan, contemporary writers on related themes whose historical coincidence in the London of the 1860s neatly frames the problem of historical major/minorness. Marx is generally considered a major writer to the extent to which he is excised from the context of Victorian Britain; Ruskin is a major writer only within that context, but rarely treated as major in the intellectual histories of Europe. Throughout Mikimoto's intellectual formation, and through his own engagements with style, this chapter attempts to catch a glimpse of a minor Marx and a minor Ruskin.
J. B. BULLEN
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128885
- eISBN:
- 9780191671722
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128885.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The similarity between John Ruskin’s account of Italian Renaissance tombs and Robert Browning’s imaginary tomb in St Praxed was so striking that Ruskin drew attention to it in the fourth volume of ...
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The similarity between John Ruskin’s account of Italian Renaissance tombs and Robert Browning’s imaginary tomb in St Praxed was so striking that Ruskin drew attention to it in the fourth volume of Modern Painters. The verse of Browning’s poem ‘The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St Praxed’s Church’ has none of the assertive moral certainty of John Ruskin’s prose. The changes in style of the tombs of northern Italy are representative of the growth of a larger concept — Renaissance ‘Pride of State’ — and this in turn contributes materially to the corruption and fall of Venice and hence to the rest of Europe. There can be little doubt that Browning, like Ruskin, is drawing energy from that combination of religion, history, and art which was such an explosive one in the 1840s. Even though the term ‘Renaissance’ is not a part of Browning’s vocabulary, he seems to favour a complex form of ‘realism’ rather than the more naive ‘idealism’ which was so fashionable in current Renaissance historiography.Less
The similarity between John Ruskin’s account of Italian Renaissance tombs and Robert Browning’s imaginary tomb in St Praxed was so striking that Ruskin drew attention to it in the fourth volume of Modern Painters. The verse of Browning’s poem ‘The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St Praxed’s Church’ has none of the assertive moral certainty of John Ruskin’s prose. The changes in style of the tombs of northern Italy are representative of the growth of a larger concept — Renaissance ‘Pride of State’ — and this in turn contributes materially to the corruption and fall of Venice and hence to the rest of Europe. There can be little doubt that Browning, like Ruskin, is drawing energy from that combination of religion, history, and art which was such an explosive one in the 1840s. Even though the term ‘Renaissance’ is not a part of Browning’s vocabulary, he seems to favour a complex form of ‘realism’ rather than the more naive ‘idealism’ which was so fashionable in current Renaissance historiography.
Deanna K. Kreisel
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823282128
- eISBN:
- 9780823286034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823282128.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This essay considers art critic, environmental reformer, and heterodox political economist John Ruskin as an early sustainability theorist through an examination of his commitment to organicism. That ...
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This essay considers art critic, environmental reformer, and heterodox political economist John Ruskin as an early sustainability theorist through an examination of his commitment to organicism. That commitment manifests in Ruskin’s struggle to differentiate the living from the non-living, most evident in his writings on crystals, leaves, and iron: “The Work of Iron, In Nature, Art, and Policy” (1858) and The Ethics of Dust (1866). This struggle is discussed in the context of his heterdox political economy as an early demand theorist, and his idiosyncratic writings on economic value as inhering in anything that avails “toward life.” By arguing that Ruskin is an important precursor to contemporary ecocritical discourse, it complicates recent critical readings of Ruskin’s anthropocentrism and instrumental aesthetics.Less
This essay considers art critic, environmental reformer, and heterodox political economist John Ruskin as an early sustainability theorist through an examination of his commitment to organicism. That commitment manifests in Ruskin’s struggle to differentiate the living from the non-living, most evident in his writings on crystals, leaves, and iron: “The Work of Iron, In Nature, Art, and Policy” (1858) and The Ethics of Dust (1866). This struggle is discussed in the context of his heterdox political economy as an early demand theorist, and his idiosyncratic writings on economic value as inhering in anything that avails “toward life.” By arguing that Ruskin is an important precursor to contemporary ecocritical discourse, it complicates recent critical readings of Ruskin’s anthropocentrism and instrumental aesthetics.
Marcus Waithe
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198737827
- eISBN:
- 9780191801273
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198737827.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
John Ruskin complained of being ‘called a “word painter” instead of a thinker.’ This chapter challenges the basis of that opposition, in claiming that Ruskin’s way of putting things is itself a ...
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John Ruskin complained of being ‘called a “word painter” instead of a thinker.’ This chapter challenges the basis of that opposition, in claiming that Ruskin’s way of putting things is itself a valuable kind of thought. A resonant case is his reference in Proserpina (1875-86) to ‘the melancholy humour of a root in loving darkness’, where the vitalist idea of ‘vegetable love’ intrudes on botanical convention in a way that isn’t simply ‘purple’. These later tendencies draw on the purportedly systemic methods of the early works, where definition plays a key role in reopening apparently closed views. When Ruskin wants to tell us what a wall is, he indicates that it has ‘purposes in its existence, like an organized creature’, and that its foundation is ‘what the paw is to an animal’ (The Stones of Venice). From first principles of definition, he conjures something not just unexpected, but manifestly rethought.Less
John Ruskin complained of being ‘called a “word painter” instead of a thinker.’ This chapter challenges the basis of that opposition, in claiming that Ruskin’s way of putting things is itself a valuable kind of thought. A resonant case is his reference in Proserpina (1875-86) to ‘the melancholy humour of a root in loving darkness’, where the vitalist idea of ‘vegetable love’ intrudes on botanical convention in a way that isn’t simply ‘purple’. These later tendencies draw on the purportedly systemic methods of the early works, where definition plays a key role in reopening apparently closed views. When Ruskin wants to tell us what a wall is, he indicates that it has ‘purposes in its existence, like an organized creature’, and that its foundation is ‘what the paw is to an animal’ (The Stones of Venice). From first principles of definition, he conjures something not just unexpected, but manifestly rethought.
J. B. BULLEN
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128885
- eISBN:
- 9780191671722
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128885.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
George Eliot’s Romola occupies a unique place in the nineteenth-century historiography of the Renaissance. Written in the early 1860s, the novel comes approximately midway between the negative ...
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George Eliot’s Romola occupies a unique place in the nineteenth-century historiography of the Renaissance. Written in the early 1860s, the novel comes approximately midway between the negative account of Renaissance culture in John Ruskin and the quite different version offered by Walter Pater in the early 1870s. Whereas both Ruskin and Pater identify the Renaissance as a coherent period and can be considered Organicist historians, Eliot, at the narrative level, more closely resembles the so-called Formist historian. The metahistory of Romola is not one which subscribes to the theory of a coherent period called the Renaissance. On the contrary, the image of the fifteenth century, as it appears in this novel, is divergent; it is one of difference, and contradiction. The stresses between conflicting moral ideas, the collision of political positions, the clash of antithetical human temperaments, and the struggle between religious belief and humanism are precisely the forces which bring about the fictional ‘awakening’ of Romola. In Romola, Eliot offers a picture of fifteenth-century Italy which is substantially divergent.Less
George Eliot’s Romola occupies a unique place in the nineteenth-century historiography of the Renaissance. Written in the early 1860s, the novel comes approximately midway between the negative account of Renaissance culture in John Ruskin and the quite different version offered by Walter Pater in the early 1870s. Whereas both Ruskin and Pater identify the Renaissance as a coherent period and can be considered Organicist historians, Eliot, at the narrative level, more closely resembles the so-called Formist historian. The metahistory of Romola is not one which subscribes to the theory of a coherent period called the Renaissance. On the contrary, the image of the fifteenth century, as it appears in this novel, is divergent; it is one of difference, and contradiction. The stresses between conflicting moral ideas, the collision of political positions, the clash of antithetical human temperaments, and the struggle between religious belief and humanism are precisely the forces which bring about the fictional ‘awakening’ of Romola. In Romola, Eliot offers a picture of fifteenth-century Italy which is substantially divergent.
Julia Straub
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199584628
- eISBN:
- 9780191739095
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199584628.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, Poetry
In 1859 William Gladstone commissioned a painting from William Dyce which became known as Beatrice. A portrait of a young woman wearing a plain Renaissance dress, Beatrice is one of the first ...
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In 1859 William Gladstone commissioned a painting from William Dyce which became known as Beatrice. A portrait of a young woman wearing a plain Renaissance dress, Beatrice is one of the first Victorian paintings depicting Dante's muse and reflects an obsession with Beatrice and the Vita Nuova, which is typical of the mid and late-Victorian reception of Dante. The Victorian Beatrice is usually associated with Pre-Raphaelite artworks, especially those by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Many of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Beatrices fit into either the category of the ‘beautiful dead woman’ or that of the male artist's cipher or projection screen. In contrast, the different Beatrices this chapter introduces possess a powerful and animate aura: they are alive, and the realm they inhabit is not so much a land of shadows, but the social environment of the Victorian here and now. The first part looks at her exploitation in Victorian literature, especially in the hands of John Ruskin, who saw Beatrice as a model for the behaviour of English women. In the second part, a critical response to such processes of idealization is discussed. George Eliot's Romola, a novel which consciously revises the use of a literary figure such as Beatrice, contains complex criticism of the kind of female idealization perpetuated by poetic traditions.Less
In 1859 William Gladstone commissioned a painting from William Dyce which became known as Beatrice. A portrait of a young woman wearing a plain Renaissance dress, Beatrice is one of the first Victorian paintings depicting Dante's muse and reflects an obsession with Beatrice and the Vita Nuova, which is typical of the mid and late-Victorian reception of Dante. The Victorian Beatrice is usually associated with Pre-Raphaelite artworks, especially those by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Many of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Beatrices fit into either the category of the ‘beautiful dead woman’ or that of the male artist's cipher or projection screen. In contrast, the different Beatrices this chapter introduces possess a powerful and animate aura: they are alive, and the realm they inhabit is not so much a land of shadows, but the social environment of the Victorian here and now. The first part looks at her exploitation in Victorian literature, especially in the hands of John Ruskin, who saw Beatrice as a model for the behaviour of English women. In the second part, a critical response to such processes of idealization is discussed. George Eliot's Romola, a novel which consciously revises the use of a literary figure such as Beatrice, contains complex criticism of the kind of female idealization perpetuated by poetic traditions.
Eleonora Sasso
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474407168
- eISBN:
- 9781474449670
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474407168.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines the pervasive influence of Arabian marvel tales on Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River and Sesame and Lilies (1865), as well as on Morris’s The Earthly Paradise. More ...
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This chapter examines the pervasive influence of Arabian marvel tales on Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River and Sesame and Lilies (1865), as well as on Morris’s The Earthly Paradise. More similarly to Marx’s ideological Orientalism, Ruskin and Morris sympathise with people’s misery, with their material life and the Arab townsfolk, and thereby with the criminal underworld. Ruskin’s ideological Orientalism is particularly evident in his lectures and autobiography whose rhetorical language may be analysed through possible world theory, Fauconnier’s mental space analysis and Oatley and Johnson-Laird’s cognitive theory of emotions (1987). By projecting such Oriental conceptual metaphors as East is poverty and East is corruption, Ruskin aims at sensitising his readers to the perils of imperialism. Morris’s fascination with the East is first and foremost connected with the Byzantine decorative arts and carpet-making. As founder of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), he promoted a campaign against the restoration of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, the paramount example of Arab influence on Venetian architecture. His connection with the East can be better understood, however, by investigating the Oriental love scenarios in The EarthlyParadise, whose narrative poems seem to restructure the Arabian tales of the ‘Forbidden Chamber’ cycle.Less
This chapter examines the pervasive influence of Arabian marvel tales on Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River and Sesame and Lilies (1865), as well as on Morris’s The Earthly Paradise. More similarly to Marx’s ideological Orientalism, Ruskin and Morris sympathise with people’s misery, with their material life and the Arab townsfolk, and thereby with the criminal underworld. Ruskin’s ideological Orientalism is particularly evident in his lectures and autobiography whose rhetorical language may be analysed through possible world theory, Fauconnier’s mental space analysis and Oatley and Johnson-Laird’s cognitive theory of emotions (1987). By projecting such Oriental conceptual metaphors as East is poverty and East is corruption, Ruskin aims at sensitising his readers to the perils of imperialism. Morris’s fascination with the East is first and foremost connected with the Byzantine decorative arts and carpet-making. As founder of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), he promoted a campaign against the restoration of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, the paramount example of Arab influence on Venetian architecture. His connection with the East can be better understood, however, by investigating the Oriental love scenarios in The EarthlyParadise, whose narrative poems seem to restructure the Arabian tales of the ‘Forbidden Chamber’ cycle.
Andrew Lynch
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266144
- eISBN:
- 9780191860027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266144.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
From the mid-eighteenth century onward, histories of England written for children became a very popular literary genre, attempted by authors as various as Oliver Goldsmith, Jane Austen, William ...
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From the mid-eighteenth century onward, histories of England written for children became a very popular literary genre, attempted by authors as various as Oliver Goldsmith, Jane Austen, William Godwin, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin and H. E. Marshall (Our Island Story, 1905). This chapter investigates how these histories typically represent the Middle Ages to children through themes of war, violence and religion, within a long-range view of the nation and empire slowly developing beyond archaism. Medieval war is sometimes depicted as barbaric, but also read as a sign of racial spirit. Medieval religion, especially monastic culture, receives a more generally hostile reaction. The medievalism of most writers – Ruskin is a telling exception – frames the period as a dark prelude to Reformation and the later growth of Great Britain through the assertion of regal and parliamentary power.Less
From the mid-eighteenth century onward, histories of England written for children became a very popular literary genre, attempted by authors as various as Oliver Goldsmith, Jane Austen, William Godwin, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin and H. E. Marshall (Our Island Story, 1905). This chapter investigates how these histories typically represent the Middle Ages to children through themes of war, violence and religion, within a long-range view of the nation and empire slowly developing beyond archaism. Medieval war is sometimes depicted as barbaric, but also read as a sign of racial spirit. Medieval religion, especially monastic culture, receives a more generally hostile reaction. The medievalism of most writers – Ruskin is a telling exception – frames the period as a dark prelude to Reformation and the later growth of Great Britain through the assertion of regal and parliamentary power.
David Brown
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195383355
- eISBN:
- 9780199870561
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195383355.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, History of Christianity
This chapter identifies the impact of Darwin's discoveries on landscape art. Constable, Friedrich, and the Hudson River school are used to illustrate pre-1858 attitudes; Ruskin, Dyce, and van Gogh ...
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This chapter identifies the impact of Darwin's discoveries on landscape art. Constable, Friedrich, and the Hudson River school are used to illustrate pre-1858 attitudes; Ruskin, Dyce, and van Gogh post-1860. A pessimistic distancing only slowly gives place to new forms of immanence. A concluding section explores art's continuing interaction with science through theosophical ideas in Mondrian, nuclear physics in Dalí, and Kiefer's protests against all forms of dogmatism.Less
This chapter identifies the impact of Darwin's discoveries on landscape art. Constable, Friedrich, and the Hudson River school are used to illustrate pre-1858 attitudes; Ruskin, Dyce, and van Gogh post-1860. A pessimistic distancing only slowly gives place to new forms of immanence. A concluding section explores art's continuing interaction with science through theosophical ideas in Mondrian, nuclear physics in Dalí, and Kiefer's protests against all forms of dogmatism.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778046
- eISBN:
- 9780804780537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778046.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter discusses the men who tried to put John Ruskin's ideas into practice to bring art to Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester. The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery would be significantly ...
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This chapter discusses the men who tried to put John Ruskin's ideas into practice to bring art to Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester. The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery would be significantly determined by the knowledge, prominence, connections, and longevity of its curator. In Liverpool, perhaps Ruskin's suspicions were justified, as art remained a luxury rather than a necessity. The Manchester City Art Gallery could not avert friction between its stated mission of giving workers access to fine art and artisanship and its frequent use as a space of middle-class entertainment and sociability. The major advocates of these city art museums linked art, beauty, social justice, labor, and morality in different ways, but all argued that art was a requirement for the enhancement and betterment of the working classes and of industrial society itself.Less
This chapter discusses the men who tried to put John Ruskin's ideas into practice to bring art to Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester. The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery would be significantly determined by the knowledge, prominence, connections, and longevity of its curator. In Liverpool, perhaps Ruskin's suspicions were justified, as art remained a luxury rather than a necessity. The Manchester City Art Gallery could not avert friction between its stated mission of giving workers access to fine art and artisanship and its frequent use as a space of middle-class entertainment and sociability. The major advocates of these city art museums linked art, beauty, social justice, labor, and morality in different ways, but all argued that art was a requirement for the enhancement and betterment of the working classes and of industrial society itself.
