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Façades in architecture have essentially been used in two ways: to present blankness concealing the programmes and functions behind them or to express vitality, institutional strength and semiotic cosmologies. With the advent of AI, diffusion models and their quick processing of huge data clouds, façade exercises can be used differently as forms of inspiration for architects. Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska‐Lincoln Brian M Kelly demonstrates how disembodied AI devoid of old architectural rules can make architects re‐examine their traditional ways of architectural composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From its very inception, architectural preservation, and the specialist conservation practices that have evolved to support it, have occupied a shifting territory of constant quantification and continually evolving legislation. Architectural designer Cameron Stebbing evokes a menagerie of philosophical ideas used to illustrate and explore the notion that traditional recording techniques ignore hidden and veiled presences within our built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite widespread interest in John Ruskin and the theatre in recent years, little consideration has been given to his presence in the works of one major playwright, Henry Arthur Jones (1851–1929). Although Ruskin's influence on Jones has been examined in broad terms by commentators such as Kate Newey and Peter Yeandle, a detailed textual analysis of Jones's plays has not been forthcoming. In this essay, I discuss three plays by Jones – The Silver King (1882), Wealth (1889) and The Middleman (1889) – and demonstrate how they dramatise key elements of Ruskin's well-known works 'Of Queens' Gardens' (1864) and Unto This Last (1862). I argue that with these commercially successful and critically admired plays, Jones was at the forefront of communicating and popularising Ruskinian thinking for theatre audiences in the West End and across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En el presente trabajo expondremos y analizaremos algunos de los aspectos más significativos del pensamiento de John Ruskin. Comprobaremos que sus reflexiones sobre el arte en general y sobre la arquitectura en particular están íntimamente conectadas con sus ideas morales, religiosas y sociopolíticas. Fue un enemigo declarado de la civilización industrial, responsabilizándola de haber convertido el mundo en un lugar inhóspito, cruel y feo. Debía comprenderse en toda su profundidad el abismo que media entre la belleza sagrada de una torre gótica y la insufrible fealdad de una chimenea fabril. Pero Ruskin no fue un esteta despreocupado de lo social. Contempló con horror la miseria material y espiritual de esas muchedumbres hacinadas inhumanamente en los suburbios urbanos, la creciente devastación de la naturaleza, el endiosamiento del dinero, la degradación del gusto artístico y el desfallecimiento de las artes. Todos esos fenómenos o procesos estaban ocasionados por una misma lógica económica, injusta y absurda.

Usando come bussola l’acqua, il rispecchiamento e il concetto di superficie, il saggio intende mettere in luce i punti di contatto fra la poetica di Iosif Brodskij, J.M.W. Turner, John Ruskin e Venezia, la città che accolse il loro sguardo.

This article analyses John Clifford's essay on the Victorian artist Edward Burne-Jones found in his 1898 monograph Typical Christian Leaders. It demonstrates that the ideas in this essay, which has been overlooked by scholars, are closely connected to those expressed in Clifford's other work such as his The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (1892). Clifford's essay makes an important contribution both to the question of what constitutes 'Christian Art' and to an understanding of Clifford himself. It therefore deserves more attention than it has received to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The translation of La Bible d'Amiens and Sesame et les Lys was a way for Proust to take an interest in religious art, but also to cultivate his own vision of art. Ruskin was for Proust a guide who participated in the support of his artistic self by transfering a certain number of aesthetic conceptions to which his mind would never have been able to access on its own. Proust succeeds in recognizing the decisive dimension of the Christian religion and its implications for Ruskin's aesthetics. Transcending the religious dimension, Proust realizes that Christian architecture, as understood by Ruskin, acquires a meaning other than religious, namely that of a past sublimated by the powers of art. Thus the historical dimension is annihilated in favor of an aesthetic perception of works from the past. Our article therefore aims to show how this experience of translation allowed Proust to deconstruct the aesthetic vision of the author of the translated text, while constructing a vision of art that is his own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines unusual aspects of The Prioress's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer and makes the case that the story's moral protagonist releases a vicious anti-Semitic tale in the guise of Christian devotion. The essay explores the Prioress's depiction in The General Prologue, highlighting the contradiction between her seeming compliance and underlying problems by drawing on the theories of John Ruskin. Ruskin's theory of the grotesque acts as a mirror through which one can view the anxieties and biases that society has ingrained in her story. The essay also looks at Chaucer's use of premonition, using The Prioress's as a cautionary tale and advising readers to look past outward appearances. It talks about anti-Semitic attitudes from the Middle Ages, the opinions of critics, and the story's applicability to modern culture. Ultimately, it highlights Chaucer's continuing critique of society and the Prioress's position as a problematic figure in The Canterbury Tales through a comparative analysis of prejudices in the mediaeval and contemporary times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an autobiographical article, Professor Emerita of Yale University's School of Architecture Peggy Deamer records her experiences at architecture school and the epiphany moments that shifted her perception of the profession. This prompted her to question architects' love of creating 'perfect' form and dwelling in the purely ocular‐centric and the cult of the lone genius. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the mid-19th century, the United Kingdom had reached the peak of industrialisation and economic expansion, while also revealing the first drawbacks of progress: social inequality, urban overcrowding, and aesthetic discontent as a result of production techniques. In this context, and in opposition to the prevailing academic art, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was born. In paintings prior to Raphael and medieval legends, they sought the authenticity they considered had been lost in their time, directing their attentive gaze towards nature. From the outset, the Brotherhood had the support of the art critic John Ruskin. Indeed, his writings on a new economic ethics and the creative and dignifying value of craftsmanship marked his «disciple» William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author explores the limitations of art based on the potential sources of inspiration for Michel Houellebecq's The map and the territory. The dialectic of art is questioned upon its links to capitalism, the sustainability of art and the artist when it comes to the confidence of realization of one's ideas. The map-territory relation creates space for expressing the dynamics between the idea itself, its representation and what it entails when it comes to existing or perceived notions of delineation between the natural order (substance, materialization) and modernity (abstraction, impression). Houellebecq's character gives precedence to the idea, and as in non-art, its serving as a conduit for natural expression, at the same time sets a limit to human expression, culminating in nature overcoming culture. Suggesting that both nature and (idea) art deriving from it can be brutal in their own ways. The inquiry consists of trying to unearth the identity of an artist and doing so by using biofictional practices to draw a connection with, but not limited to, a conceptual creator, Douglas Huebler. Intersection of the conceptual modes of reality with the reality itself in art is inevitable. With art, the onus is in respecting the two worlds with their separate qualities, bonding the differences without negating nor assimilating them; stretching the limits of creation both in the artist and what constitutes art as a whole. Hence, the border, as John Ruskin would say, lies within the mystery of life and art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gothic architecture is a movement that has influenced world architecture, including today’s architecture, since its active period. Although it is known for some of its features such as flying buttresses, pointed arches and vaults, John Ruskin examined the characteristics of Gothic architecture except from its physical features and examined it under 6 main headings. Lars Spuybroek, the founder of Nox Architects, one of the names that come to mind when talking about digital architecture today, described these characteristics of Ruskin as the “digital nature of Gothic”. He examined 3 of these 6 characteristics and analyzed them in the chapter titled with “The Digital Nature of Gothic” in his book “The Sympathy of Things: Ruskin and the Ecology of Design”. In this study, based on the work of Spuybroek, his work with Nox Architects, the debates on beauty and elegance he encountered in his journey to the nature of Gothic, and why he named gothic architecture digitally were examined and some discussions were made on this subject.

The pseudonymously authored The Feast of the Fishes (1808) is one of several 'papillonades' published for children in the early nineteenth century. Like other papillonades, this short poem depicts anthropomorphic animals in order to offer a satirical perspective on the conventions of polite society. The poem's playful mock-heroic tone is, however, undermined by its depiction of a shark in pursuit of a slave ship. The image of sharks following slave ships was a potent symbol in abolitionist discourse, but its appearance within this comedic context makes its intended impact difficult to discern. In what spirit is this disturbing image offered? How are readers to make sense of the scarcely veiled horror of what is being depicted both verbally and visually? Addressing these questions, this article reassesses the generic identity of children's literature and its relationship to the satirical and political discourse of the Romantic period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the idea of making spaces that were dependent on the vitality of mixing scales of use, of ad hoc social interaction, sometimes choreographed and sometimes not, and a growing sense of community where work and play were not separated and fun was everywhere. His idea of the ‘Doodle Bar' was all this and more.

Known internationally for novels such as the The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1921), New York-born Edith Wharton (1862-1937) began her writing career as a poet in 1878 with a self-published volume of Verses. She equated the work of architects and garden designers to that of poets in travel essays from the 1890s and early 1900s, many of which were collected and republished under the titles Italian Villas and their Gardens (1904), Italian Backgrounds (1905), and A Motor-Flight Through France (1908). The present article explores the aesthetics of writing, architecture, and home design in the earliest part of Wharton's career in order to better understand her poetic vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas Wilde Studies are constantly opening new directions for debate, they reveal a paucity of criticism from environmentalist perspectives. This should not come as a surprise, since ecocritical approaches may seem incongruous with the anti-mimetic poetics of Aestheticism. Nevertheless, that ecocriticism should be applied to studies on Aestheticism, and hence to Oscar Wilde, is a key issue at the present moment, when the approach shows a wide variety of practices. Moreover, Wilde’s texts frequently resist anti-mimesis and evidence contradictions in his positioning on Nature and Art. My contribution aims to bridge this critical gap by giving an overview of current ecocriticism on Wilde and providing analytical glimpses into three of his texts in which the relationship between nature and culture, places and identities, utopian and dystopian societies can be traced. Other ecocritical issues – the role of the environment within a text’s power hierarchies, the connections between the oppression and marginalisation of certain groups and their behaviour towards the environment, or the representation of animals – are also foci of analysis. Though initially related to ideas developed by John Ruskin in or around Wilde’s Oxford years, these issues are interpreted in the light of recent theories, which bring out the modernity and complexity of Wilde’s ecocritical vision, often oppositional to Victorian thinking and anticipatory of twentieth-century stances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article carries out a close, comparative reading of two modern illuminated editions of the Vita nova by an Arts and Crafts artist, namely Phoebe Anna Traquair (1902) and a London-based art professional, Evelyn Paul (1916). After a short reconstruction of the historical and social context fostering the revival of illumination in mid-to-late Victorian Britain, the article unpacks the inner mechanism of pictorial, decorative, and typographical mediation that the two illuminators designed to translate the verbal sign and convey a distinctive visual interpretation of the libello. It considers how their editions introduced the 'elite arts of poetry' and manuscript illumination within the intellectual and economic reach of the middle-class mass public seeking cultural cultivation. It ponders how these popular artefacts mediated Dante's book of poetry for a whole new reading public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Ruskin was a Victorian polymath who developed severe mental health problems from late middle age. This paper focuses on one of his many areas of interest and expertise, visual aesthetics. It traces the relationship between his theories and practices in this area and the nature of his mental health condition, which was dominated by visual symptoms. It argues that Ruskin's aesthetic theory is part of a broader spiritual visionary quest, firmly framed within the Christian theological tradition, and that it valorises certain habits of perception and attention that are now recognised to be a feature of cognition in psychosis. It suggests that there is continuity, if not a causal relationship, between Ruskin's lifelong adoption of these practices and the psychological symptoms he displayed as his (probably neuropsychiatric) illness progressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) toured the English Midlands in summer 1830. An outcome of the journey was a watercolour now in the collection of the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Wirral, entitled Dudley, Worcestershire (Figure 1). A version of the same scene attributed to Turner entitled Lime Kilns with Dudley Castle (Figure 2) was bequeathed to the Dudley Art Gallery in 1947 by Henry Pearman Bagott (1861–1946), a Dudley solicitor. The provenance of the watercolours is considered in the light of questions posed by the re-discovery of a catalogue of the collection of Dr George Charles Williamson (1858–1942), a previous owner of the latter version. The catalogue links Turner's relationship with the Birmingham-born artist, David Cox (1783–1859) to the involvement of the Wolverhampton industrialist, Laurence William Hodson (1864–1933), and forms the basis for possible further research on the provenance of the versions of Turner's watercolours of Dudley. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La actuación de Fortunato de Selgas en San Julián de los Prados, Oviedo, sintetiza el debate sobre la restauración monumental en España a principios del siglo XX. Integra elementos de la restauración estilística, limitada por el racionalismo arqueológico, el avance de las teorías italianas de la restauración histórica y boitiana y la influencia de la estética ruinista y de la llamada sinceridad arqueológica. Unas fotografías inéditas de 1932 nos devuelven la imagen perdida de la iglesia tras la intervención y nos permiten conocer uno de los ejemplos más interesantes de la restauración española de principios del siglo XX, desgraciadamente alterado por intervenciones posteriores.

Copyright of Haidé: Estudis Maragallians is the property of Biblioteca de Catalunya and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay considers John Ruskin's "reading" of the stonework of fifteenth-century Venice for its lesson in virtues and then adapts his technique for reflection on scenes of St. Jerome in his study. The authors argue that these artifacts have more than art historical interest. They have spiritual interest. By looking backward to previous generations' ways of imagining scholarship, we can gain a fresh view of our own scenes of reading and writing, not just for the objects strewn about within in them but also for their animating spirits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Ruskin, nearly two centuries before Ghosh's (2016) call for action, would likewise struggle with his Victorian readers to convey his ecological and conservational concerns in his writings on the Venetian Lagoon and the English Lake District. Drawing on spatial theory and theology, this article will focus on Ruskin's unique sanctification of the natural and man-made spaces that he observed being spoiled and destroyed by humanity's touch, in an attempt to convey to his readers, the marked need to take accountability for their anthropogenic actions. This article will further focus on how Ruskin used his descriptions of these fragile landscapes and spaces to forewarn us of the imminent repercussions of our evolving Anthropocene age on the spaces and places we hold sacred. Ruskin recognised that for Venice, a city that maintains a dependency with its ecological and hydrological environments, the impact of the environmental crisis was dire - as we now know, if the world cannot radically reduce its carbon footprint, climate models show that sea-level rise is most likely to inundate Venice by 2100. This article will address how Ruskin, a spiritual-spatial thinker, forewarned us in his writings of the imminent repercussions of our evolving Anthropocene age on both our planet and our very souls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1871 marked a turning point in John Ruskin’s career. At that point in his career, he had become an established intellectual authority with his appointment at Oxford, Ruskin Sr. had passed away and left him both a fortune and free reign over his intellectual pursuits, and he had taken over his own publishing methods. These momentous changes helped Ruskin turn to more closely examine questions of readership and what he saw as those readers’ needs: educational reading practices in particular and better education in general. My honors thesis seeks to examine the major project John Ruskin embarked on to ameliorate the needs of his readers: Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain (1871-84). This project examines how Ruskin came to write Fors: the material and biographical circumstances surrounding its production, Ruskin’s authority at the time, and the implied audience he was writing for. Here I explore the letters and investigate their form, the assumptions they make regarding reading, and the confusion respecting whether their implied audience matched up with the actual one Ruskin had. The works of what scholars call the “late Ruskin” (1870-1900) are daunting because of the phenomenal quantity and the experimental nature of much of that work. But this period, I argue, is also one of Ruskin’s most important because it is the time when he finally gains intellectual independence, and uses his status as an intellectual authority to bring about social change. Francis O’Gorman writes that “[r]eaders of Victorian non-fictional prose were once encouraged to believe that John Ruskin died in 1860. Not literally, certainly, but intellectually and imaginatively (1). The present project is invested in debunking this myth in order to remind readers that the “late Ruskin” has continuously influenced not only art criticism but also publishing methods, reading practices, and socialist thought.

Architecture is a collaborative, trans-disciplinary undertaking, not unlike political practice. Architects following armies into conquered territories, turned visions of political order into architecture, the embodiment of order as varied as was the role of the architect throughout time. When Germany, pondered her image as an industrialized nation with philosophical gravitas, she turned to design recognizing the new means of mass production, mechanized yet not losing sight of the makings of good taste: craftsmanship, proportion, and the fitness of form to purpose, both emotional and utilitarian. The architect once again was leader even at times when building was at a lull as Bruno Taut wrote in a letter dated November 24, 1919 "Today there is almost nothing to build … it is a good thing that nothing is being built today. Things will have time to ripen, we shall gather our strength, and when building begins again we shall know our objectives and be strong enough to protect our movement against botching and degeneration." These views were in their natural context of The Crystal Chain Letters, the correspondence of "Architectural Fantasies" by Bruno Taut and his circle that included Hermann Finsterlin, Max Taut, Walter Gropius, Hans and Wassili Luckhardt, and Hans Scharoun (Taut, 1985). Taut maintained the complexity of an organic union between building and architecture, essential and mystical as that between body and spirit.

Copyright of Czech Journal of Historical Heritage Preservation / Zpravy Pamatkove Pece is the property of Narodni Pamatkovy Ustav and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The following paper deals with the beginnings of ecocritical thought in John Ruskin’s essay Unto This Last (1862). The article presents the context of its economic thought and relates it to the beginnings of “ecology” in the work of German biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). The key aspect of Ruskin’s approach is a close link between a humane economy and a sense of responsibility for the environment. In his sweeping analysis of laissez-faire capitalism, he contrasts creation with production, focuses on the reductive terminology of political economy and its potentially devastating consequences if it becomes the leading ideology of the state. The final part of the paper assesses the importance of this essay for the development of ecocritical thought as well as its relevance today.

The images of Venice by Philadelphian Joseph Pennell (1857-1926) have never really escaped from James McNeill Whistler's long shadow. His etchings, drawings, pastels, and lithographs all show the influence of the master. Together with his wife, Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936), he would publish a two-volume biography of his friend (1908). Their allegiance to Whistler and the Barbaro Circle brought the Pennells to endorse a new image of Venice away from the hegemonic cult of Ruskin pervasive in tourist and travel books about the city. This article seeks to reassess the contribution of both Pennells to this group of erudite intellectuals and reconsider their promotion of a more truthful and intimate representation of Venice beyond the mass of tourists and polished marble façades. Its special focus is on the Pennells' - Elizabeth's in particular - antagonistic relationship with Ruskin, whose iconic The Stones of Venice had mourned a city forever lost to tourists, over-restoration, and the onslaught of the railroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geoff Shearcroft – architect, architectural tutor, and director of London‐based AOC Architecture – opines that joy is crucial in architecture and that this joy is not about adherence to styles or prescribed spatial protocols, but emotional engagement. Joy propagated Postmodernism in the 1970s and 1980s, and so today, in another economically unstable time, it is re‐emerging, albeit differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

London‐based DK‐CM is an architecture and urbanism practice that operates in the public sector. It is inspired by the complex heterogeneous nature of public space and its diverse personal histories, some oral, some institutional. David Knight and Cristina Monteiro describe their approach to community collaboration, inclusivity and designing with and for the public in all its magnificent spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eminent Victorian writer and social reformer John Ruskin (1819–1900), whose bicentenary took place in 2019, was deeply concerned throughout his working life was the power of vision: the good that he believed could arise, both for individuals and society at large, from well-trained and properly-directed visual perception, from an ability to draw, and from the opportunity to enjoy and learn from beautiful, publicly-accessible and well-maintained works of art. It was these related topics that were addressed in ‘Art for the Nation: John Ruskin, Art Education and Social Change’, a two-day conference held at the National Gallery on 20–21 September 2019. Papers from that event have been reworked for publication here and a few newly-commissioned pieces have been added to fill certain gaps. This introduction explains how, taken together, these articles consider afresh Ruskin’s interactions with and influence on the collecting, display and cataloguing of art in public and private collections in Britain and abroad, as well as his ideas concerning art education and how best to teach drawing to children and adults in Victorian Britain, asking questions about the extent to which Ruskin was working alongside or outside the British art establishment, the contributions he made to the emerging discipline of art history, and what his ideas can teach future generations of museum goers, artists, curators and funding bodies. This introduction also situates the conference and the papers published here within a broader landscape of public exhibitions, displays, conferences and other activities which took place in the bicentennial year, aimed at drawing attention to Ruskin’s life, work and legacy.

Ruskin’s relationship with the National Gallery spanned almost half a century. This article will attempt to explain why he got involved with the institution at various points from the middle of the nineteenth century, what form his interventions took, and how such action fitted in with his evolving ideas about art galleries in general. The focus will be on Ruskin’s evolving thinking about what functions and what type of visitors a public art gallery should serve and what he regarded as best practice in relation to preserving great art and arranging, exhibiting and cataloguing it for public benefit. We will also consider, in passing, how his ideas about the National Gallery fitted within his later thinking in relation to other art institutions, including his own museum in Sheffield, and how his thinking related to a wider national discourse on the topic during the second half of the nineteenth century.

This paper considers Ruskin’s Guide to the Principal Pictures in the Academy of Fine Arts at Venice (1877) in the light of his earlier thinking about the nature and purpose of museums and his concurrent creation of St George’s Museum at Walkley. Usually dismissed as betraying mental instability, a careful reading of the Guide and its intertexts, especially St Mark’s Rest, shows it textually to reorder the Academy’s collection in ways blurring the distinction between ‘national’ and ‘local’ museums for which Ruskin had argued in the 1850s and ideally to form part of the discourse explanatory of the ‘design’ of the Walkley museum.

Since 2016, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History has built on the legacy of its founders, including John Ruskin, by integrating the arts into its scientific programming. In this article, we revisit the lectures that Ruskin gave at the museum in the 1870s during his tenure as Slade Professor of Fine Art, tracing his arguments in favour of art as a complement to the science of natural history. In spite of Ruskin’s attacks on contemporary science in these lectures, his concern with human impact on the environment resonates deeply today. We show how the museum’s new practice corroborates his arguments by enabling it to communicate science to new audiences and to reflect on the implications of scientific discoveries. Finally, we argue that natural history museums have both the capacity and a responsibility to advance public action in response to the current environmental crisis, and that a transdisciplinary approach integrating art and science is the most effective way for them to do so.

This article compares the place of line in the later art teaching of Ruskin with its role in the South Kensington system , the national art training scheme developed from the late 1830s under the auspices of the British Board of Trade. It focuses especially on Ruskin s influence on Ebenezer Cooke, a pupil of his at the Working Men s College in the 1850s and later, like Ruskin, a vigorous opponent of South Kensington. Starting from a heated public exchange of 1875 involving Ruskin, Cooke and an executant of the government system, William Bell Scott, the article examines Ruskin s theoretical and practical revaluation of line between the publication of The Elements of Drawing (1857) and of his second drawing manual, The Laws of Fésole (1877–78). It then shows how Cooke combined Ruskin s earlier analyses of curvature in nature and ornament and his growing sense of outline as a locus of interdisciplinary thought and moral expression with insights into child nature gleaned from the pedagogy of Pestalozzi and Froebel and from contemporary British psychology, thus developing an original understanding of, and method of teaching, elementary drawing founded on the ovate general forms which in Cooke s view formed a link between nature and historically and developmentally primitive design.

On a cold Spring morning in 1969, a small group of scholars gathered at Brantwood. They were commemorating Ruskin s 150th birthday, and sharing their interests and knowledge. Taking this conference as its starting point, the study follows various threads of interest through the next fifty years, including the transformation of Bembridge, Sheffield and Lancaster as centres for Ruskin scholarship, as well as the continuing traditions of the productive landscape at Brantwood and Ruskin Land. It also considers some of the gaps we would now recognise in the line-up of 1969, especially the contested place of Ruskin in gender studies, and the role of women in developing Ruskin s legacies. This paper will draw on new interviews with Ruskin specialists from many different disciplines carried out in anticipation of Ruskin s 200th birthday.

In 1857, during the run of the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester, John Ruskin delivered his two-part lecture on The Political Economy Art at the Manchester Athenaeum, now the Manchester Art Gallery. He berated the city s industrialists and merchants for their laissez-faire capitalism and narrow, self-indulgent understanding of art. In this landmark lecture, Ruskin transformed himself very publicly from art critic to social critic, and yet his new economy retained art at its centre. His newly modelled eco-system was one in which nature and art played key roles rather than being a market driven system. In this article, 162 years after Ruskin delivered his lecture, Alistair Hudson revisits this watershed moment and berates the Consensus Art World for failing to take heed of Ruskin s message and argues the case for the use, re-use and misuse of Ruskin s work, as the most relevant voice in a time of political, economic, cultural and ecological turmoil.

This article examines John Ruskin s response to Giorgio Vasari s The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, a text which had a mixed reception during the Victorian period in connection with the rise of new art-historical approaches to the Italian Renaissance. Although Ruskin was aware of the unpicking of Vasari s text by continental critics as advances in connoisseurship and archival research challenged Vasari s authority and discredited his findings, Ruskin was a close reader of Vasari s Lives. The article examines references to Vasari during three epochs of Ruskin s career in particular – his tour to Italy of 1845, Modern Painters II and III, and his Oxford lectures of the 1870s.

O presente artigo pretende evidenciar e perceber a presença do ornamento vivo na formação do pensamento estético de John Ruskin. Suas reflexões sobre o trabalho expressivo na arquitetura, manifestado sobretudo em sua ornamentação, serão tomadas sob o conceito do fantástico paradoxo da imperfeição, que evidencia a vitalidade e o prazer do trabalhador em sua prática oficinal. Tal manifestação de vida e de felicidade somente poderia ser alcançada pela comunhão entre o trabalho manual e intelectual de seus artesãos. Palavras-chaves: John Ruskin; Arquitetura; Ornamento; Imperfeição