Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Modern Painters

Rate this book
a single volume abridgment of Ruskin's five-volume magnum opus orginally published between 1843 and 1860.

656 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1888

20 people are currently reading
316 people want to read

About the author

John Ruskin

3,739 books473 followers
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

John Ruskin was an English writer, philosopher, art historian, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy.
Ruskin was heavily engaged by the work of Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc which he taught to all his pupils including William Morris, notably Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionary, which he considered as "the only book of any value on architecture". Ruskin's writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He wrote essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, architectural structures and ornamentation. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art gave way in time to plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society.
Ruskin was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J.M.W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature". From the 1850s, he championed the Pre-Raphaelites, who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
17 (36%)
4 stars
17 (36%)
3 stars
11 (23%)
2 stars
1 (2%)
1 star
0 (0%)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Profile Image for Janée Baugher.
Author 3 books5 followers
Read
August 31, 2020
Invaluable resource for my book on ekphrasis. Ruskin was erudite and opinionated. The section in which he articulates and explanation of the two hemispheres of the brain was smart and prophetic--years before Freud and Jung. Genius.
Profile Image for Jackson Cyril.
836 reviews91 followers
November 1, 2017
Ruskin is the sort of self-consciously arrogant prick that makes you yearn for the deconstructionists to come through and knock the Victorians off their holier-than-thou pedestal.
Profile Image for Blunt Of Mercia.
99 reviews2 followers
March 3, 2025
Aside from its merits as a work on aesthetics, it is a literary masterpiece.
The type of book you can dip in and out of forever, always finding an interesting phrase or some finely done description of nature.
2 reviews
May 27, 2015
I read the abridged edition edited by David Barrie. Still a long work. Fascinating and complex.
Profile Image for Octavia Randolph.
Author 24 books588 followers
June 1, 2013
The first volume in Ruskin's titanic intellectual efforts on art and society
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.