Значение слова RUSKIN в Литературной энциклопедии

RUSKIN

JOHN (1819-1900).-Writer on art, economics, and sociology, was _b._ in London, the _s._ of a wealthy wine merchant, a Scotsman. Brought up under intellectually and morally bracing Puritan influences, his education was mainly private until he went to Oxf. in 1836; he remained until 1840, when a serious illness interrupted his studies, and led to a six months' visit to Italy. On his return in 1842 he took his degree. In 1840 he had made the acquaintance of Turner, and this, together with a visit to Venice, constituted a turning point in his life. In 1843 appeared the first vol. of _Modern Painters_, the object of which was to insist upon the superiority in landscape of the moderns, and especially of Turner, to all the ancient masters. The earnestness and originality of the author and the splendour of the style at once called attention to the work which, however, awakened a chorus of protest from the adherents of the ancients. A second vol. appeared in 1846, the third and fourth in 1856, and the fifth in 1860. Meanwhile he had _pub._ _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_ (1849), _The Stones of Venice_ (1851-53), perhaps his greatest work, _Lectures on Architecture and Painting_ (1854), _Elements of Drawing_ (1856), and _Elements of Perspective_ (1859). During the 17 years between the publication of the first and the last vols. of _Modern Painters_ his views alike on religion and art had become profoundly modified, and the necessity of a radical change in the moral and intellectual attitude of the age towards religion, art, and economics in their bearing upon life and social conditions had become his ruling idea. He now assumed the _role_ of the prophet as Carlyle, by whose teaching he was profoundly influenced, had done, and the rest of his life was spent in the endeavour to turn the mind of the nation in the direction he desired. _The Political Economy of Art_ (1857) showed the line in which his mind was moving; but it was in _Unto this Last_, _pub._ in the _Cornhill Magazine_ in 1860, that he began fully to develop his views. It brought down upon him a storm of opposition and obloquy which continued for years, and which, while it acted injuriously upon his highly sensitive nervous system, had no effect in silencing him or modifying his views. There followed _Munera Pulveris_ (Gifts of the Dust), _The Crown of Wild Olive_, _Sesame and Lilies_ (1865), _Time and Tide by Wear and Tyne_, and innumerable fugitive articles. In 1869 R. was appointed first Slade Prof. of the Fine Arts at Oxf., and endowed a school of drawing in the Univ. His successive courses of lectures were _pub._ as _Aratra Pentelici_ (Ploughs of Pentelicus) (1870), _The Eagle's Nest_ (1872), _Ariadne Florentina_ (1872), and _Love's Meinie_ (1873). Contemporaneously with these he issued with more or less regularity, as health permitted, _Fors Clavigera_ (Chance the Club-bearer), a series of miscellaneous notes and essays, sold by the author himself direct to the purchasers, the first of a series of experiments-of which the Guild of St. George, a tea room, and a road-making enterprise were other examples-in practical economics. After the death of his mother in 1871 he purchased a small property, Brantwood, in the Lake district, where he lived for the remainder of his life, and here he brought out in monthly parts his last work, _Praeterita_, an autobiography, 24 parts of which appeared, bringing down the story to 1864. Here he _d._ on January 20, 1900. R. was a man of noble character and generous impulses, but highly strung, irritable, and somewhat intolerant. He is one of our greatest stylists, copious, eloquent, picturesque, and highly coloured. His influence on his time was very great, at first in the department of art, in which he was for a time regarded as the supreme authority, later and increasingly in the realms of economics and morals, in which he was at first looked upon as an unpractical dreamer. He _m._ in 1848, but the union proved unhappy, and was dissolved in 1855. For his Life _see_ his own works, especially _Praeterita_. _Life and Works_ by Collingwood (2 vols., 1893). _Bibliography_, T.J. Wise (1889-93). Shorter works by Mrs. Meynell, J.A. Hobson, F. Harrison, etc.

Литературная энциклопедия. 2012