John Ruskin: An Illustrated Life of John Ruskin, 1819-1900 (Shire Library)
Scandalous Women (Free subscription) | 11/30/2009
In 1854, the gossip in London was all about the collapse of art critic John Ruskin’s marriage to Effie Gray. Not even the recent war in the Crimea was as titillating a topic. Nobody in society could talk about anything else. The matter was the hot topic at dinner parties for months as people eagerly chewed over the details. Ladies whispered about it in the drawing rooms, while...
Laudator Temporis Acti (Free subscription) | 11/21/2009
John Ruskin, Proserpina: Studies of Wayside Flowers , chapter 1 ( Moss ): In three months I shall be fifty years old: and I don't at this hour—ten o'clock in the morning of the two hundred and sixty-eighth day of my forty-ninth year—know what 'moss' is. There is nothing I have more intended to know—some day or other. But the moss 'would always be there'; and then it...
Laudator Temporis Acti (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
John Ruskin, Praeterita , X ( Crossmount ): Flowers, like everything else that is lovely in the visible world, are only to be seen rightly with the eyes which the God who made them gave us; and neither with microscopes nor spectacles. These have their uses for the curious and the aged; as stilts and crutches have for people who want to walk in mud, or cannot safely walk but on three legs...
The Telegraph (Free subscription) | 10/21/2009
The historical characters of Jane Austen Samuel Johnson and John Ruskin will be reporting on modern society and politics in a series of television broadcasts.
NarcissusWorks (Free subscription) | 10/21/2009
... of the dark streets of Verona. . . The Lamp of Memory , From The Seven Lamps of Architecture by John Ruskin Introduction by Andrew Saint Century ed.
Iain Dale's Diary (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
... said he was very surprised there had been anything red in Downing Street in the 1980s. He quoted John Ruskin who said that great historical figures are judged by their deeds, words and art. Lady Thatcher had already fulfilled the first two criteria, he said, and now it was time for the third. As the portrait was being unveiled, Lady Thatcher remarked "Thank you very much. I like...
Artdaily (Free subscription) | 11/26/2009
... academies in their native country. Some, like James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and John Singer Sargent, remained in Europe essentially for the rest of their lives. Most of the scholarship on the American expatriate artists focuses on the master/apprentice model, depicting eager young American artists learning at the knee of established European teachers. But for artists as talented...
The Flying Trilobite (Free subscription) | 11/24/2009
Anthropometry Close up of left side: Close up of right side: Click each to enlarge. The text on the right hand glove says: "It follows also, that no vain or selfish person can possibly paint, in the noble sense of the word." -from Modern Painters by John Ruskin Vol.5 , E.P. Dutton & Co. (no date on colophon) . "When the pupils can make from the figure rapid pencil sketches...
Paul D Shenton's Birding Blog (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
I must confess that John Ruskin is testing my patience a little now! He’s right though, there is really no such thing as bad weather, it’s the same weather day after day that is the real problem – it becomes tedious, rain or shine. The scene on Burton marsh this morning was rather sodden with the resident Kestrels looking like gloom personified - praying I’m sure...
Anecdotal Evidence (Free subscription) | 11/22/2009
Mike Gilleland shames me with a charming passage about moss he found in a John Ruskin volume I never knew existed -- Proserpina: Studies of Wayside Flowers (1886). Reading Chapter I, “Moss,” online I find this sample of Ruskinian whimsy, among others: “Going out to the garden, I bring in a bit of old brick, emerald green on its rugged surface, and a thick piece...
Around-England (Free subscription) | 11/25/2009
... around Coniston have to offer the person who prefers to keep reasonably warm and dry? The Ruskin Museum In Coniston village itself there is the Ruskin Museum. This should not be confused with Brantwood, which was John Ruskin’s home on the opposite bank of the lake from 1871 until his death in 1900, and which I’ll mention in a later paragraph. The museum is in the village...
Slap of the Day (Free subscription) | 11/17/2009
The story goes that the great art critic John Ruskin refused to consummate his marriage to his young bride because he was horrified at finding she had pubic hair. He was used to seeing paintings and statues. That was in 1848 and you’d think young men these days would have a pretty good idea of what women look like down there. Well, you would be wrong: apparently, some men still...
Across Difficult Country (Free subscription) | 11/16/2009
... he pointed to the Russians.” “Ships cannot be made subjects of sculpture.” - John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice .
Scrivener.net (Free subscription) | 11/14/2009
... Hall” evangelical Christians). Then who were the bad guys? The poets: Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and everyone’s favorite literary critic of capitalism, Charles Dickens. It was Carlyle who christened economics [social science] as the "dismal science", in contrast with the “gay science” of poetry. The context is shocking: Truly, my philanthropic friends,...
Business Pundit (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
... became a Mason whilst studying at Oxford in the 1870s. After hearing a speech by fellow mason, John Ruskin, calling for ‘a ruling class with a powerful army to keep it in power’, he became obsessed with the idea of bringing the entire world under the rule of the British Masonic elite, and sought to do so through extensive business projects in Africa and the Empire. In his estate Rhodes...
