Advancing

“He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living Peace.”

Ruskin[1]

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[1] John Ruskin was born in 1819 in London, and raised in south London, the only child of a wine importer. He was educated at home, and went on to study at King’s College London and Christ Church, Oxford. His studies were erratic and he was often absent. However, he impressed the scholars of Christ Church after he won the Newdigate prize for poetry, his earliest interest. In consequence, and despite a protracted period of serious illness, Oxford awarded him an honorary fourth class degree.

The scope of John’s interests was impressive. His first publication, in 1836, dealt with the culture of architecture. He followed this with a paper on the state of meteorology. Next came his first major work, Modern Painters. In time he became the most influential art critic in England. He was a friend and patron to a number of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

In 1848, he married Effie Gray. Their marriage was notoriously unhappy, eventually being annulled in 1854 on grounds of his “incurable impotency,” a charge he later disputed, even offering to prove his virility at the court’s request. But he did not argue the point that the marriage had not been consumated. Effie later married the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais, who had been John’s protegé.

In the late 1850s, Ruskin had a crisis of religious belief. Under the influence of his great friend Thomas Carlyle (see footnote 21) he abandoned art criticism to focus on social issues. In Unto this Last he expounded theories which led to the formation of the British Labour party and Christian socialism. 

In 1866, Ruskin proposed to 18 year old Rose La Touche, with whom he had been infatuated since meeting her when she was a child. She eventually refused him, in 1872, and died soon after. He fell into despair and bouts of mental illness. This accelerated a trend of decreasing popularity in the art world as the public shifted to new ideas.  A successful libel suit brought by painter James Whistler further hurt his prestige.  He spent much of his later life in England’s Lake District. He died in 1900.

In the final analysis, Ruskin’s influence was vast. Leo Tolstoy described him as “one of those rare men who think with their heart.” Marcel Proust was a Ruskin enthusiast and helped translate his works into French. Mahatma Gandhi quoted Unto this Last frequently, and even translated it into Gujarati. A number of Utopian socialist “Ruskin Colonies” attempted to put his political ideals into practice: Ruskin, Nebraska; Ruskin, Florida; Ruskin, British Columbia; and the Ruskin Commonwealth Association of Dickson County, Tennessee. In Britain, many streets, places and colleges are named after Ruskin. Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge bears his name.  (Source: Wikipedia)