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John Ruskin

Name: John Ruskin
Author: John Batchelor
ISBN: 9780786708147

by Batchelor, John

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Overview

On the centenary of Ruskin's death, a biography that explores the genius of the romantic visionary and the anguish of the private man. A man of prodigious genius, the eminently Victorian John Ruskin ranged over the entire landscape of human knowledge, from botany and geology to art criticism and social theory. He championed the painter J. M. W. Turner, the poetry of Wordsworth, and Gothic architecture. He inspired Proust and Gandhi. Works like his incomparable Stones of Venice fathered a new generation of aesthetes, while his indictment of English industrialism in The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century fathered the ethical socialists who would strive to establish a new political order for the working man. Not only does this probing new biography celebrate the literary career that made Ruskin one of the most influential cultural figures of his day, it also illuminates the darker side of an emotionally unstable man whose obsessive desires thwarted his marriage to Effie Gray and later - after the death of Rose La Touche, the young girl he loved consumingly - drove him to extended bouts with madness. No passion, though, could dim the blazing creative energy of the intelligence that reimagined England's social destiny, as this estimable, crisply detailed volume shows. "Attractively written and well-argued.... A shrewd summary of Ruskin's career and a balanced assessment of his major works." - Sunday Telegraph "The perfect condensed account of Ruskin's life." - Daily Telegraph; "An excellent short study, keenly alert to the social and political environments in which Ruskin found himself." - Guardian.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Early in Batchelor's splendid one-volume life, he notes that young Ruskin (1819-1900) suffered as "an overloved child [who] has been emotionally mutilated by its parents"--and that this suffering was to affect him for the rest of his life. For example, when Ruskin went to Oxford, his mother took lodgings nearby to oversee him. When he went on holiday to Italy to study its art and architecture, his parents accompanied him. When Ruskin wed the beautiful Effie Gray, his mother and father accompanied the bride and groom on their honeymoon, where he proved unable to consummate the marriage. Claiming for much of his life to be a semi-invalid whose first priority was himself, Ruskin, financed by his father's wealth as a wine merchant, was an indefatigable climber and walker, and a hugely productive writer and lecturer. He proposed linked social, economic and aesthetic cures for all the ills of 19th-century life, but no cure emerged for his manic-depressive swings emanating from sexual obsessions that, Batchelor writes, "filled him with grief, guilt and conflict." While such a calamitous life might produce in others only suffering and self-absorption, Batchelor (The Life of Joseph Conrad; etc.) shows how Ruskin's self-destructive discontent was turned into passionate, crusading prose about the dignity of work and the worth of art. Well received in England, where it has already been published, and hardly more than half the bulk of Tim Hilton's recent and swollen John Ruskin: The Later Years, Batchelor's complete life takes by far the more accessible approach. As this is the centennial of Ruskin's death, this bio should draw some attention here, especially if linked by New York booksellers to the current "Ruskin's Italy, Ruskin's England" show at that city's Morgan Library, but interest won't approach that in Ruskin's native England, where the book previously appeared to critical acclaim. 8 pages b&w, 8 pages color illus. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In a 1906 poll asking which books or authors most influenced their beliefs, Labour members in the House of Commons listed John Ruskin first, above even the Bible. Much is being written on the centenary of the death of this Victorian critic, artist, scholar, and social reformer. Following Tim Hilton's whopping two-volume John Ruskin (The Early Years, Yale Univ., 1985; The Later Years, LJ 6/1/00), Batchelor gives us a concise and readable account of Ruskin's rich but tragic life, as well as his influence. The author of other biographies of Victorian and Edwardian figures, Batchelor is obviously well read on his subject, generously quoting from Ruskin's writings and letters to illustrate "Ruskin's exuberant untidiness." The reader is given the basics on Ruskin as art critic; his youth and travels, particularly to Venice; championing the painter J.M.W. Turner; influence on the Pre-Raphaelites; doomed marriage and later madness; and role as the first professor of fine arts at Oxford. But from art criticism grew a social reformer; Ruskin argued that Good Art could not be produced in a society lacking education, morality, and healthy social conditions, ideas that would inspire others, from Leo Tolstoy to D.H. Lawrence to Gandhi. Batchelor's concise biography serves primarily to remind us why Ruskin is still important. Recommended for public libraries and general academic collections.--Joseph Hewgley, Nashville P.L. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A lucid, concise biography of Ruskin's troubled life and a penetrating criticism of his major work. This year being the centenary of Ruskin's death, many publishers are churning out books on his life and the intellectual impact of his writings. Batchelor's (English/Univ. of Newcastle) study is among the finest of these as an invaluable single-volume introduction to Ruskin's life, times, and writing. He approaches Ruskin's voluminous work by analyzing his troubled relationship with his parents, arguing that Ruskin's oppressively domineering family created a son who depended on them entirely for emotional support and maximized his prodigious intellectual talents out of a sense of familial duty. The author demonstrates that Ruskin's dependence on his parents permanently scarred his personal life, leaving him torn between honoring parental authority and yearning for adult independence. He argues that this emotional conflict resulted in the dissolution of Ruskin's marriage (on the grounds of impotence) and the destructive mental illnesses he suffered late in life. On the other hand, Batchelor suggests that this same tension productively fueled Ruskin's visionary forays into Romanticism as he searched for a path that would reconcile his tortured life with his Victorian culture. This shrewd approach serves its subject well: it elevates Ruskin's social thought, thereby presenting his personal life more tragically. Throughout, Batchelor sustains his arguments with elegant prose that succeeds in bringing Ruskin to life. An in-depth resource for current Ruskin scholars, and excellent introduction to the thoughts of this crucial 19th century artisticandsocial thinker. (8 pp. b&w photos, 8 pp. color photos)