He, therefore, had a significant influence on Ruskin’s art career. Turner, John Constable, and John Sell Cotman were at the peak of their careers. His father, John James Ruskin, was a Scots wine merchant who had moved to London and made a fortune in the sherry trade. John James had hoped to practice law, and was articled as a clerk in London. Editor of. Fellow and Tutor in English Literature, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. Fellow and Tutor in English Literature, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. By the mid-1830s he was publishing short pieces in both prose and verse in magazines, and in 1836 he was provoked into drafting a reply (unpublished) to an attack on Turner’s painting by the art critic of Blackwood’s Magazine. Three years later, in the second volume of Modern Painters (1846), Ruskin would specifically distinguish this strenuously ethical or Theoretic conception of art from the Aesthetic, undidactic, or art-for-art’s-sake definition that would be its great rival in the second half of the 19th century. An only child, Ruskin was born in 1819 in south London to affluent parents, John James Ruskin, a Scottish wine merchant, and Margaret Ruskin, the daughter of a pub proprietor. John Ruskin is England's greatest writer on European visual arts and architecture. Jan 8, 2015 - Explore Shaun Curran's board "John Ruskin - Artist, Critic", followed by 150 people on Pinterest. In 1818, he married his cousin Margaret, the daughter of a skipper in the herring fleet. John Ruskin was exposed to this from a very early age. His mother, Margaret, was a rigorous evangelical who insisted on his memorizing large parts of the Bible. She taught him how to read the bible. In 1823 the Ruskin family moved to a semi-detached house with a large garden at 28 Herne Hill, Herne Hill. John James Ruskin disliked the necessary travelling in search of clients which separated him from his wife and child; as the sherry business prospered he was able to make the summer tour with his family less and less of a business trip and more and more of a holiday. Omissions? John James Ruskin was the son of an Edinburgh calico merchant. Updates? This combination of the religious intensity of the Evangelical Revival and the artistic excitement of English Romantic painting laid the foundations of Ruskin’s later views. In 1843 Ruskin published the first volume of Modern Painters, a book that would eventually consist of five volumes and occupy him for the next 17 years. John Ruskin was born on 8 February 1819 at 54 Hunter Street, London, the only child of Margaret and John James Ruskin. John Ruskin, (born February 8, 1819, London, England—died January 20, 1900, Coniston, Lancashire), English critic of art, architecture, and society who was a gifted painter, a distinctive prose stylist, and an important example of the Victorian Sage, or Prophet: a writer of polemical prose who seeks to cause widespread cultural and social change. In 1843 Ruskin published the first volume of Modern Painters, a book that would eventually consist of five volumes and occupy him for the next 17 years. Since most of them had been shaped by an austerely puritanical religious tradition, Ruskin knew that they would be suspicious of claims for painting that stressed its sensual or hedonic qualities. See more ideas about john ruskin, ruskin, english art. In these years famous painters such as JMW Turner, John Constable, and John Cotman were at the making the careers. In these circumstances the critic was obliged to create in words an effective sensory and emotional substitute for visual experience. John James Ruskin (1785-1864) was the father of John Ruskin and son of John Thomas Ruskin, and Catherine Tweddale. Ruskin discovered the work of Turner through the illustrations to an edition of Samuel Rogers’s poem Italy given him by a business partner of his father in 1833. Ruskinobtained his early education fr… This shift of concern from general to particular conceptions of truth was a key feature of Romantic thought, and Ruskin’s first major achievement was thus to bring the assumptions of Romanticism to the practice of art criticism. His first purpose was to insist on the “truth” of the depiction of Nature in Turner’s landscape paintings. He was the one who introduced him to Romanticism works of art. RUSKIN, JOHN (1819–1900), author, artist, and social reformer, was the only child of John James Ruskin (b. This shift of concern from general to particular conceptions of truth was a key feature of Romantic thought, and Ruskin’s first major achievement was thus to bring the assumptions of Romanticism to the practice of art criticism. Ruskin did this in a prose style peculiarly well adapted to the discussion of the visual arts in an era when there was limited reproductive illustration and no easy access to well-stocked public art galleries. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, … Ring in the new year with a Britannica Membership, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Ruskin, Art Encyclopedia - Biography of John Ruskin, Ashmolean - The Elements of Drawing: John Ruskin’s Teaching Collection at Oxford, John Ruskin - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Ruskin was born on February 8, 1819, to first cousins, John James Ruskin and Margaret Cox. In the process Ruskin introduced the newly wealthy commercial and professional classes of the English-speaking world to the possibility of enjoying and collecting art. The two women grew close and soon fastened on a common object of love and concern, John James. John James Ruskin had much experience of his son's sudden enthusiasms. Ruskin studied at Oxf… In these circumstances the critic was obliged to create in words an effective sensory and emotional substitute for visual experience. As he did so, he alerted readers to the fact that they had, in Turner, one of the greatest painters in the history of Western art alive and working among them in contemporary London, and, in the broader school of English landscape painting, a major modern art movement. Shortly after his return from Switzerland in early October of 1859, Ruskin left London for Cheshire. In 1818, he married his cousin Margaret, the daughter of a skipper in the herring fleet. He was educated at home, where h… Editor of. Despite his friendships with individual Aesthetes, Ruskin would remain the dominant spokesman for a morally and socially committed conception of art throughout his lifetime. His father, a prosperous, self-made man who was a founding partner of Pedro Domecq sherries, collected art and encouraged his son's literary activities, while his mother, a devout evangelical Protestant, early dedicated her son to the service of God and devoutly wished him to beco Author. John Ruskin, the only child of John James Ruskin (1785–1864), a sherry importer, and Margaret Cock (1781–1871), was born on 8th February 1819, at 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, London. He was born at 54 Hunter Street, London. As he did so, he alerted readers to the fact that they had, in Turner, one of the greatest painters in the history of Western art alive and working among them in contemporary London, and, in the broader school of English landscape painting, a major modern art movement. John James Ruskin was the son of a small tradesman, and Margaret Ruskin's family ran a pub. Omissions? His father, John James Ruskin (1785–1864), was a sherry and wine importer, founding partner and de facto business manager of Ruskin, Telford and Domecq (see Allied Domecq). John Ruskin, an only child, was largely educated at home, where he was given a taste for art by his father’s collecting of contemporary watercolours and a minute and comprehensive knowledge of the Bible by his piously Protestant mother. He was given his education at home until the age of 12. The young Ruskin spent his summers in the Scottish countryside and when he was four, the family moved to south London's Herne Hill, a rural area at the time. He writes luminously about paintings and buildings with a power and passion unmatched by any other English author. Ruskin’s family background in the world of business was significant, too: it not only provided the means for his extensive travels to see paintings, buildings, and landscapes in Britain and continental Europe but also gave him an understanding of the newly rich, middle-class audience for which his books would be written. John Ruskin, (born February 8, 1819, London, England—died January 20, 1900, Coniston, Lancashire), English critic of art, architecture, and society who was a gifted painter, a distinctive prose stylist, and an important example of the Victorian Sage, or Prophet: a writer of polemical prose who seeks to cause widespread cultural and social change. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 1781), his wife, the daughter of a skipper in the herring fishery. Neoclassical critics had attacked the later work of Turner, with its proto-Impressionist concern for effects of light and atmosphere, for mimetic inaccuracy, and for a failure to represent the “general truth” that had been an essential criterion of painting in the age of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was the only child of John James Ruskin and Margaret Cox. In his formative years, painters such as J.M.W. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Ring in the new year with a Britannica Membership, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Ruskin, Art Encyclopedia - Biography of John Ruskin, Ashmolean - The Elements of Drawing: John Ruskin’s Teaching Collection at Oxford, John Ruskin - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). 3 Alternately, John Ruskin’s mother, Margaret Ruskin, was not at all interested in the fine arts. Updates? John Ruskin (8 February 1819 - 20 January 1900) was an English art, social, and literary critic, and sometime poet. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). John Ruskin (1819-1900) On February 8, 1819, prominent social thinker and philanthropist John James Ruskin was born. The cousins met when Margaret traveled to Edinburgh to serve as helper and companion to her aunt, John James's mother. This gave him an opportunity to have a peek at the newly forming high classes and middle classes of the society. Working in the tradition of the Romantic poetic prose of Charles Lamb and Thomas De Quincey, though more immediately influenced by the descriptive writing of Sir Walter Scott, the rhetoric of the Bible, and the blank verse of William Wordsworth, Ruskin vividly evoked the effect on the human eye and sensibility both of Turner’s paintings and of the actual landscapes that Turner and other artists had sought to represent. John James Ruskin was the son of an Edinburgh calico merchant. His parents, John James and Margaret Ruskin, were first cousins, his father a Scottish wine merchant, his mother a particularly devout Protestant. One after another, Turner’s “truth of tone,” “truth of colour,” “truth of space,” “truth of skies,” “truth of earth,” “truth of water,” and “truth of vegetation” were minutely considered, in a laborious project that would not be completed until the appearance of the fifth and final volume of Modern Painters in 1860. Ruskin did this in a prose style peculiarly well adapted to the discussion of the visual arts in an era when there was limited reproductive illustration and no easy access to well-stocked public art galleries. Ruskin was born on 8 February 1819 at 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square , London (demolished 1969), south of St Pancras railway station . Before he was sixteen, his sister Jessie was already married at Perth By 1843 avant-garde painters had been working in this new spirit for several decades, but criticism and public understanding had lagged behind. As a child, Ruskin was reserved. His father, John James, gave his son that sense of duty and hard work that drove Ruskin around Europe on the many tours he took, the tours … They moved to London, where John James became a partner in the firm of sherry importers, Domecq, Telford and Ruskin. Ruskin’s father was a sherry and wine importer, and as such, Ruskin spent a considerable amount of his childhood touring Europe with his father and these travels had a significant influence on his writings and poetry. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. His father, John James, was a successful wine merchant who was fond of Romantic writers, especially Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott. After five years at the University of Oxford, during which he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry but was prevented by ill health from sitting for an honours degree, Ruskin returned, in 1842, to his abandoned project of defending and explaining the late work of Turner. Ithaca, NY; London: Cornell University Press, 1973. In the process Ruskin introduced the newly wealthy commercial and professional classes of the English-speaking world to the possibility of enjoying and collecting art.