Tuesday, 22 January 2019

1819: John Ruskin: a thinker for our time

In a few days time it will be the bicentenary of the birth of Victorian polymath John Ruskin:
Ruskin, John (1819–1900), art critic and social critic | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

He was indeed a sharp observer of society:
Ruskin the radical: why the Victorian critic is back with a vengeance | Culture | The Guardian

And he is still speaking to us today:
Robert Hewison on why Victorian thinker John Ruskin is important - YouTube 
  
As the concerns he had about industry, manufacture and commerce are the concerns of today - with this clever modern interpretation:



Largecow.com | Big Bumper Bovine Bits & Bytes.

With an exhibition happening in London: 



John Ruskin, Study of Moss, Fern and Wood Sorrel, upon a Rocky River Bank, 1875-79

Artist, art critic, educator, social thinker and true polymath, John Ruskin (1819-1900) devoted his life to the pursuit of knowledge. To mark the bicentenary of his birth, a new exhibition produced by Two Temple Place, Museums Sheffield and the Guild of St George, will celebrate the legacy and enduring relevance of Ruskin’s ideas and vision. John Ruskin: The Power of Seeing will bring together over 190 paintings, drawings, daguerreotypes, metal work, and plaster casts to illustrate how Ruskin’s attitude to aesthetic beauty shaped his radical views on culture and society.

John Ruskin - Two Temple Place
John Ruskin's Influence on Art and Architecture on View in London Show | Architectural Digest

As heard on Start the Week: 

Art, truth and power

21 January 2019

Andrew Marr on beauty and politics in art. Our idea of beauty was shaped by the great Victorian art critic John Ruskin. He thought all people deserved to see beauty every day, and compared, and founded a gallery in Sheffield for local industrial workers. To mark Ruskin's bicentenary, curator Louise Pullen has put together a new exhibition showing how his ideas about art, science, truth and beauty shaped the politics of the day. 


BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Art, truth and power

Ruskin had a real sympathy of and for things - as reflected in another programme this week: 

An argument for observing our material world better and for understanding the way we make objects, and objects, in turn, make us.

BBC Radio 4 - The Sympathy of Things, Part 1

Melvyn Bragg lives in Ruskin's house:
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, John Ruskin
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