John Ruskin (1819-1900), one of the most prolific and influential figures of the Victorian era, made his home at Brantwood, near the town of Coniston in the Lake District, for the last decades of his life. Ruskin was a poet, artist, conservationist, philosopher, art historian and critic, and social commentator. He rose to public prominence as a defender of the British painter J.M.W. Turner and, shortly thereafter, as a champion of the Pre-Raphaelites when their initial works provoked sharp controversy and even derision.
The only child of a devout evangelical mother and a successful merchant father actively interested in nature, travel, and art, Ruskin’s thought was rooted in two movements of the late eighteenth century: Romanticism and Evangelical Protestantism.
His mother raised him in her evangelical faith and taught him to memorise long portions of the Bible. This formative experience was a life-long influence on his thought and writings but, by mid-life, his faith had waned, although he continued to espouse Christian moral teaching.
Ruskin's aesthetic views stressed the relationship between morality, art, and architecture. Art, he believed, is concerned not only with beauty but also with truth—and thus with knowledge of good and evil. Art and architecture reflect the moral nature and qualities of designers.
Later in his life, Ruskin focused on social criticism. He loathed capitalism, modern technology, and the industrial system, and rejected the economic philosophy (then known as Political Economy) that justified the uprooting of traditional agrarian society. He was a profoundly anti-modern, not to say reactionary, thinker who looked back to the Middle Ages as an ideal period. Calling himself “a violent Tory of the old school”, he denounced liberalism, democracy, and equality as antithetical to justice and social harmony. He upheld hierarchy, established order, and obedience to inherited authority as most conducive to protection of the weak and unfortunate.
Ruskin is buried in the yard of his parish church, St Andrew’s, his grave marked by a large carved Celtic Cross made of green slate from a local quarry. The carved symbols represent important aspects of Ruskin’s life and work.
(Click on all photos for larger views.)
In the centre of the east face (shown at right) sits a young man writing poetry as the sun rises. Ruskin won the Newdigate prize for poetry while a student at Oxford and his first published writings were poems. Above the young man can be seen a winged lion, representing St Mark, patron saint of Venice, and at the top of the shaft a seven-branched candlestick. Two of Ruskin’s influential books on art theory and history are The Stones of Venice and The Seven Lamps of Architecture.
The south face (above) bears a vine scroll with animals and flowers in the branches.
The west side (at left) represents works of social criticism Ruskin wrote later in his life. The bottom illustration, showing Christ on his throne with two men standing next to him, one on his left and one on his right, refers to Unto This Last, which Ruskin regarded as his most important book.
Published in 1860, Unto This Last takes its title from the King James translation of The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (St Matthew 20:1-16). At the end of the day, the labourers who worked only the last hour receive a penny, the same pay given to those who worked all day. The workers who toiled through the heat of the day grumble against the good-man of the house, but he replies: “Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.”
Above are carvings relating to later works.
The north side (at right) has an interlaced pattern.
Coniston’s Ruskin Museum contains a permanent exhibition dedicated to the town’s most famous resident. This is the text of the brief biography posted there.
One of the great figures of the nineteenth century, John Ruskin was born in the same year as Queen Victoria and died just a year before her. Through his writings and lectures especially on art, architecture, and society, he was one of the most influential of all Victorians. Passionately interested in geology and natural history, he was also a gifted artist. The first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University, Ruskin established his own Drawing School (in 1871), as well as the Guild of St George (1875), an association intended to set examples in rural economy and education; both are still flourishing today.
Born in London on 8 February 1819, John was the only son of Margaret Cox and John James Ruskin, a prosperous sherry importer in the firm of Ruskin, Telford, and Domecq, and received private tuition before taking a degree at Christ Church, Oxford.
In 1843 he published his first important book Modern Painters which began as a defence of the artist J.M.W. Turner — whom Ruskin recognised as the greatest of all British painters — and continued over four more volumes as a wide-ranging study of landscape, religion, and Old Master painting. The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) contained the first principles of architectural conservation, and The Stones of Venice (three volumes, 1851-3) cemented his reputation as a writer. As well as emphasising the superiority of Venetian models, during the height of fashion for the Gothic Revival, it also celebrated the importance of craftsmanship within a well-ordered society.
Never entirely at ease in any company, Ruskin was nonetheless a dedicated teacher. He began to give public lectures in 1853, and taught drawing at the Working Men’s College from 1854, producing a popular handbook The Elements of Drawing (1857). In this, he emphasized that the act of looking, and understanding, was the key point in art. He had become friendly with the Pre-Raphaelite circle in the early 1850s, defending their avant-garde work in the press, and acquiring drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal, and, later, Edward Burne-Jones.
Further ideas on social equality and reforms were presented in Unto This Last, originally a series of magazine articles. Its publication as a book in 1860 caused a furore, as Ruskin questioned the whole basis of capitalism, concluding that “There is no wealth but life”. This book continued to be read well into the twentieth century, having a profound impact on later radical thinkers, and persuading the young Gandhi to fight for social justice. Other collections of essays and lectures, including Sesame and Lilies (1865) and The Crown of Wild Olive (1866), also ran into dozens of editions.
From 1870 Ruskin lectured at Oxford, resigning in 1878 because of illness (partly brought on by a suit for libel brought by the painter Whistler) but resuming his Professorship from 1883 to 1884. Perhaps the most significant of his later publications was Fors Clavigera (1871-84), a long series of monthly pamphlets, addressed to the “workmen and labourers of Great Britain” and outlining many new ideas. Praeterita, his autobiography, was begun in 1885 but left incomplete.
In 1871 he bought Brantwood, picturesquely sited on Coniston Water, which would remain his home. Ruskin suffered increasingly severe bouts of depression, and succumbed to almost total mental incapacity from 1889 until his death on 20 January 1900. Although burial in Westminster Abbey was offered, his grave is in the churchyard at Coniston.
Ruskin’s art theory and criticism contributed decisively to the Gothic Revival, and his social and economic opinions had a profound influence on the British socialist and labour movements. Toward the end of his life, however, he realised that his socio-economic arguments were not gaining enough support to change the course of British society. This, compounded by illness and personal unhappiness, led him to withdraw to solitude at Brantwood, where he was cared for by his cousin Joan Severn. After 1889, he wrote nothing more than a few letters and rarely spoke. He died of influenza in January 1900.
The Victorian Web’s Ruskin portal is located here. Another Ruskin portal, with links to online versions of his writings, can be found here. Quotations by John Ruskin are posted here.
Brantwood is open year round for visitors.
The photograph of John Ruskin at the top is a platinum print taken by Frederick Hollyer in 1894.
Links to all my blog posts about British churches and Christian sites can be accessed through the box at the top of the page.
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