Lectures on Architecture and Painting - John Ruskin - 1854
8/13/24 (updated 12/15/25)John Ruskin (1819–1900) was a leading Victorian English writer, art and architecture critic, and social thinker whose ideas deeply influenced aesthetics and social reform.Basic biographyRuskin was born on 8 February 1819 in London and died on 20 January 1900 at Brantwood, near Coniston in the Lake District. Trained at Oxford, he first became prominent in the 1840s and remained an important public intellectual for much of the nineteenth century.Roles and fieldsHe was a polymath: writer, lecturer, art historian, draughtsman, and philanthropist, active in subjects ranging from art and architecture to geology, botany, and political economy. Ruskin is often described as the most influential art and architecture critic of the nineteenth century and a prime example of the Victorian “sage” or prophetic moral essayist.Major worksRuskin’s early fame came from Modern Painters, begun in the 1840s as a defence of J. M. W. Turner and an argument for truth to nature in art. His other key books include The Seven Lamps of Architecture and The Stones of Venice on architectural theory, and Unto This Last, which set out his critique of contemporary political economy.Ideas and influenceRuskin insisted that art has a moral and social purpose and linked aesthetic value to honesty, craftsmanship, and the conditions of workers’ lives. His social and economic writings, which attacked laissez‑faire capitalism and stressed the dignity of labour, influenced later reform movements, including the Arts and Crafts movement and early welfare‑state thinking.LegacyHe founded the Guild of St George, a small utopian association meant to foster just, communal living, traditional crafts, and the preservation of nature. Ruskin’s criticism shaped artists such as the Pre‑Raphaelites and helped inspire later figures including Tolstoy and Gandhi, ensuring his continuing importance in art history, literature, and social thought.Source: Perplexity.ai--G. Lykeyword: 19thCentury,
