John Ruskin
The critic who defended both Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites.
John Ruskin was the most influential art critic of the 19th century. He wrote Modern Painters in defence of Turner, championed the Pre-Raphaelites in 1851 and, in The Stones of Venice, laid the foundations of the Arts and Crafts movement's ideas about the value of craftsmanship. He was himself a skilled draughtsman.
John Ruskin was born in London in 1819, the only child of a wealthy wine merchant. He was first educated at home by a strict and religious mother and accompanied his parents on long journeys through Europe, where he drew Alps, cathedrals and towns. He then studied at Christ Church, Oxford.
His breakthrough was the first volume of Modern Painters in 1843, written to defend J. M. W. Turner's late painting against his critics. The work grew to five volumes by 1860. Ruskin argued that art should be grounded in close observation of nature and in moral truth. In 1851 he wrote letters to The Times defending the young Pre-Raphaelites, which proved important for their careers.
In The Seven Lamps of Architecture of 1849 and The Stones of Venice of 1851–53 he celebrated Gothic architecture. The chapter “The Nature of Gothic” argues that medieval craftsmen were free to express themselves, whereas industrial workers had been turned into machines. The idea became the foundation for William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. He later turned against classical political economy in Unto This Last of 1860, which influenced both the British labour movement and Gandhi.
His private life was difficult. His marriage to Effie Gray in 1848 was never consummated and was annulled in 1854. She then married John Everett Millais. In 1869 Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, and in 1871 he founded the Guild of St George, a social project with a museum in Sheffield. In 1877 he accused Whistler of flinging a pot of paint in the public's face. Whistler sued him for libel and won, but was awarded only a farthing in damages.
From the late 1870s Ruskin suffered recurring mental breakdowns. He spent his last years at his house, Brantwood, by Coniston in the Lake District, where he died in 1900. His drawings and watercolours are held by, among others, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and collections in Sheffield. He is regarded as the most influential art critic of the 19th century and as an early thinker on the environment, labour and cultural heritage.