Modern Painters

by John Ruskin, David Barrie (Editor)

This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from CHAPTER III. OF THE INFERIOR MOUNTAINS. We have next to investigate the character of those inter- % 1. The inferior mediate masses which constitute the greater uMed "f£m part of all hill scenery, forming the outworks to! "iMdedtato of the high ranges, and being almost the sole hed". constituents of such lower groups as those of Cumberland, Scotland, or South Italy. All mountains whatever, not composed of the granite or gneiss rocks described in the preceding chapter, nor volcanic, (these latter being comparatively rare,) are composed of beds, not of homogeneous, heaped materials, but of accumulated layers, whether of rock or soil. It may be slate, sandstone, limestone, gravel, or clay ; but whatever the substance, it is laid in layers, 7iot in a mass. These layers are scarcely ever horizontal, and may slope to any degree, often occurring vertical, the boldness of the hill outline commonly depending in a great degree on their inclination. In consequence of this division into beds, every mountain will have two great sets of lines more or less prevailing in its contours—one indicative of the surfaces of the beds, where they come out from under each other—and the other indicative of the extremities or edges of the beds, where their continuity has been interrupted. And these two great sets of lines will commonly be at right angles with each other, or nearly so. If the surface of the bed approach a horizontal line, its termination will approach the vertical, and this is the most usual and ordinary way in which a precipice is produced. Farther, in almost all rocks there is a third division of sub., c 2 Portlier divl stancei which gives to their beds a tendency ion of these hcd to split transversely in some directions rather hy loints. ' ' . than others, giving rise t... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art History, 19th Century, Biography

656 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1888

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Janée Baugher]

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.

[George King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Origin of the pathetic fallacy.

[Jackson Cyril · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Blunt Of Mercia · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Michelle Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the abridged edition edited by David Barrie. Still a long work. Fascinating and complex.

[Octavia Randolph · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first volume in Ruskin's titanic intellectual efforts on art and society