The Passport of John Ruskin 1872

John Ruskin was an English writer, philosopher, art critic, and polymath during the Victorian era. He lived from 8 February 1819 to 20 January 1900. He published on a wide range of topics, including political economy, myth, ornithology, literature, education, and geology. Passport John Ruskin

Ruskin used a variety of literary genres and writing styles. In addition to articles and treatises, he also published poems, lectures, travel instructions, correspondence, and even a fairy tale. In-depth drawings and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, building components, and decorations were also created by him. His early writing on art was written in an ornate style that eventually gave way to more straightforward language that served to better convey his ideas. He emphasized the relationships between nature, art, and society in all of his writing. Passport John Ruskin

In the second half of the 19th century and up until the First World War, Ruskin had a significant impact. His reputation had a brief period of fall, but since the 1960s, a number of academic analyses of his work have been published, progressively restoring it. His worries and ideas are now widely acknowledged for foreseeing interest in sustainability, environmentalism, and craft.

With the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), Ruskin first gained national recognition for his lengthy defense of J. M. W. Turner’s artistic vision and an assertion that the primary responsibility of the artist is “fidelity to nature.” He supported the Pre-Raphaelites, who were influenced by his ideals, starting in the 1850s. His writing became more and more concerned with social and political themes. The emphasis shifted with Unto This Last (1860, 1862). Ruskin founded the Ruskin School of Drawing at the University of Oxford, where he was appointed the first Slade Professor of Fine Art in 1869. Passport John Ruskin

He started writing his Fors Clavigera, or “letters to the workmen and laborers of Great Britain,” every month in 1871. (1871–1884). He came up with the guiding ideas for his ideal society while working on this intricate and intensely personal project. He established the Guild of St. George as a result, which is still in existence today.

The impact of Ruskin was felt all around the world. Tolstoy quoted extensively from him, translating his thoughts into Russian, and called him “one of the most extraordinary men not just of England and of our generation, but of all countries and times.” Along with admiring Ruskin, Proust assisted in the French translation of his writings. Gandhi interpreted Unto This Last as Sarvodaya, “The Advancement of All,” and described the “magic spell” it cast over him in his writings. In Japan, Ryuzo Mikimoto actively contributed to Ruskin’s translation. Passport John Ruskin

Avid Traveler Passport John Ruskin

The lengthy and luxurious journeys Ruskin took as a child had a big impact on him. It enhanced his education and assisted in forming his taste. He occasionally joined his father on business trips to his clients’ country homes, where he was exposed to English landscapes, architecture, and artwork. They visited cousins in Perth, Scotland, as well as the Lake District for family vacations (his first lengthy poem, Iteriad, was a recollection of his travel in 1830). The family traveled to France and Belgium as early as 1825. They made increasingly ambitious stops on their continental trips, including Strasbourg, Schaffhausen, Milan, Genoa, and Turin in 1833—locations that Ruskin frequently visited. He fell in love with the Alps and visited Venice for the first time in 1835. This ‘Paradise of cities’ served as the inspiration for the emblem of much of his subsequent work.

Ruskin had the chance to observe and capture his impressions of nature throughout these excursions. Some of his exquisite, if primarily traditional, poetry was included in Friendship’s Offering. For a young boy his age, his early sketchbooks and notebooks are full of visually complex and technically flawless drawings of maps, landscapes, and buildings. Samuel Rogers’ poem Italy (1830), which was given to him as a gift for his 13th birthday, had a tremendous impact on him. In particular, he much appreciated the accompanying pictures by J. M. W. Turner. In the 1830s, much of Ruskin’s own artwork was a copy of Turner and Samuel Prout, whose 1833 work Sketches Made in Flanders and Germany he greatly liked. Under the guidance of Charles Runciman, Copley Fielding, and J. D. Harding, he developed his artistic abilities.