Editing John Ruskin (section)

==Early life (1819–1846)==

===Genealogy===
Ruskin was the only child of first cousins.<ref name="Intro">{{cite ODNB|author-link=Robert Hewison|first=Robert |last=Hewison| id=24291 | title=Ruskin, John (1819–1900)}}</ref> His father, John James Ruskin (1785–1864), was a sherry and wine importer,<ref name="Intro"/> founding partner and ''de facto'' business manager of Ruskin, Telford and Domecq (see [[Allied Domecq]]). John James was born and brought up in [[Edinburgh]], Scotland, to a mother from [[Glenluce]] and a father originally from [[Hertfordshire]].<ref name="Intro"/><ref>Helen Gill Viljoen, ''Ruskin's Scottish Heritage: A Prelude'' (University of Illinois Press, 1956) {{page needed|date=August 2012}}.</ref> His wife, Margaret Cock (1781–1871), was the daughter of a publican in [[Croydon]].<ref name="Intro"/> She had joined the Ruskin household when she became companion to John James's mother, Catherine.<ref name="Intro"/>

John James had hoped to practise law, and was articled as a clerk in London.<ref name="Intro"/> His father, John Thomas Ruskin, described as a grocer (but apparently an ambitious wholesale merchant), was an incompetent businessman. To save the family from bankruptcy, John James, whose prudence and success were in stark contrast to his father, took on all debts, settling the last of them in 1832.<ref name="Intro"/> John James and Margaret were engaged in 1809, but opposition to the union from John Thomas, and the problem of his debts, delayed the couple's wedding. They finally married, without celebration, in 1818.<ref>Helen Gill Viljoen, ''Ruskin's Scottish Heritage'' (University of Illinois Press, 1956) {{page needed|date=August 2012}}</ref> John James died on 3 March 1864 and is buried in the churchyard of St John the Evangelist, Shirley, Croydon.
[[File:JJ Ruskin grave.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The grave of John James Ruskin, father of John Ruskin, in the churchyard of St John the Evangelist, [[Shirley, London|Shirley]], Croydon]]

===Childhood and education===
[[File:John Ruskin by James Northcote.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Ruskin as a young child, painted by [[James Northcote]]]]
Ruskin was born on 8 February 1819 at 54 Hunter Street, [[Brunswick Square]], London (demolished 1969), south of what is now [[St Pancras railway station]].<ref name="Childhood">''ODNB''  (2004) "Childhood and education"</ref> His childhood was shaped by the contrasting influences of his father and mother, both of whom were fiercely ambitious for him. John James Ruskin helped to develop his son's [[Romanticism]]. They shared a passion for the works of [[Byron]], [[Shakespeare]] and especially [[Walter Scott]]. They visited Scott's home, [[Abbotsford House|Abbotsford]], in 1838, but Ruskin was disappointed by its appearance.<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20031012/ai_n12585843/] {{dead link|date=April 2017|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> Margaret Ruskin, an [[evangelical]] Christian, more cautious and restrained than her husband, taught young John to read the [[Bible]] from beginning to end, and then to start all over again, committing large portions to memory. Its language, imagery and parables had a profound and lasting effect on his writing.<ref>Lemon, Rebecca, et al., eds. ''The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature''. Vol. 36. John Wiley & Sons, 2010. p. 523</ref> He later wrote:

{{Quote|text=She read alternate verses with me, watching at first, every intonation of my voice, and correcting the false ones, till she made me understand the verse, if within my reach, rightly and energetically.|sign=|source=''Praeterita'', XXXV, 40}}

Ruskin's childhood was spent from 1823 at 28 [[Herne Hill]] (demolished {{circa|1912}}), near the village of [[Camberwell]] in [[South London]].<ref>J. S. Dearden, ''John Ruskin's Camberwell'' (Brentham Press for Guild of St George, 1990) {{page needed|date=August 2012}}.</ref> He had few friends of his own age, but it was not the friendless and joyless experience he later said it was in his autobiography, ''Praeterita'' (1885–89).<ref name="Childhood" /> He was educated at home by his parents and private tutors, including [[Congregational church|Congregationalist]] preacher Edward Andrews,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Edward Andrews (1787–1841) {{!}} ERM|url=https://erm.selu.edu/notes/andrews_edward_note|access-date=24 April 2021|website=erm.selu.edu|archive-date=24 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210424171849/https://erm.selu.edu/notes/andrews_edward_note|url-status=dead}}</ref> whose daughters, Mrs Eliza Orme and [[Emily Augusta Patmore]] were later credited with introducing Ruskin to the [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Andrews Family {{!}} ERM|url=https://erm.selu.edu/notes/andrews_family_note|access-date=24 April 2021|website=erm.selu.edu|archive-date=19 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419211239/https://erm.selu.edu/notes/andrews_family_note|url-status=dead}}</ref> 

From 1834 to 1835 he attended the school in [[Peckham]] run by the progressive evangelical [[Thomas Dale (priest)|Thomas Dale]] (1797–1870).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project/articles/individuals/dale_thomas.htm |title=UCL Bloomsbury Project |website=Ucl.ac.uk |access-date=18 July 2017 |archive-date=1 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200401033723/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project/articles/individuals/dale_thomas.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Ruskin heard Dale lecture in 1836 at [[King's College London|King's College, London]], where Dale was the first Professor of English Literature.<ref name="Childhood" /> Ruskin went on to enrol and complete his studies at [[King's College London|King's College]], where he prepared for [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] under Dale's tutelage.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kcl.ac.uk/aboutkings/history/famouspeople/johnkeats.aspx |title=King's College London – John Keats |website=Kcl.ac.uk |access-date=18 July 2017 |archive-date=1 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200401033728/https://www.kcl.ac.uk/aboutkings/history/famouspeople/johnkeats.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pookpress.co.uk/project/john-ruskin-biography/ |title=John Ruskin Biography >> Classic Stories |website=Pookpress.co.uk |access-date=18 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170814225900/http://www.pookpress.co.uk/project/john-ruskin-biography/ |archive-date=14 August 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Travel===
[[File:Rose Terrace, Perth.JPG|thumb|10 Rose Terrace, Perth (on the right), where Ruskin spent boyhood holidays with Scottish relatives|220x220px]]
Ruskin was greatly influenced by the extensive and privileged travels he enjoyed in his childhood. It helped to establish his taste and augmented his education. He sometimes accompanied his father on visits to business clients at their country houses, which exposed him to English landscapes, architecture and paintings. Family tours took them to the [[Lake District]] (his first long poem, ''Iteriad'', was an account of his tour in 1830)<ref>John Ruskin, ''Iteriad, or Three Weeks Among the Lakes'', ed. James S. Dearden (Frank Graham, 1969) {{page needed|date=August 2012}}</ref> and to relatives in [[Perth, Scotland|Perth]], Scotland. As early as 1825, the family visited [[France]] and [[Belgium]]. Their continental tours became increasingly ambitious in scope: in 1833 they visited [[Strasbourg]], [[Schaffhausen]], [[Milan]], [[Genoa]] and [[Turin]], places to which Ruskin frequently returned. He developed a lifelong love of the [[Alps]], and in 1835 visited [[Venice]] for the first time,<ref>[[Robert Hewison]], ''Ruskin and Venice: The Paradise of Cities'' (Yale University Press, 2009) {{page needed|date=August 2012}}</ref> that 'Paradise of cities' that provided the subject and symbolism of much of his later work.{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=1.453n2}}

These tours gave Ruskin the opportunity to observe and record his impressions of nature. He composed elegant, though mainly conventional poetry, some of which was published in ''Friendship's Offering''.{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=Introduction}} His early notebooks and sketchbooks are full of visually sophisticated and technically accomplished drawings of maps, landscapes and buildings, remarkable for a boy of his age. He was profoundly affected by [[Samuel Rogers]]'s poem ''Italy'' (1830), a copy of which was given to him as a 13th birthday present; in particular, he deeply admired the accompanying illustrations by [[J. M. W. Turner]]. Much of Ruskin's own art in the 1830s was in imitation of Turner, and of [[Samuel Prout]], whose ''Sketches Made in Flanders and Germany'' (1833) he also admired. His artistic skills were refined under the tutelage of Charles Runciman, [[Copley Fielding]] and [[James Duffield Harding|J. D. Harding]].

===First publications===
Ruskin's journeys also provided inspiration for writing. His first publication was the poem "On Skiddaw and Derwent Water" (originally entitled "Lines written at the Lakes in Cumberland: Derwentwater" and published in the ''Spiritual Times'') (August 1829).{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=2.265-8}} In 1834, three short articles for [[John Claudius Loudon|Loudon]]'s ''Magazine of Natural History'' were published. They show early signs of his skill as a close "scientific" observer of nature, especially its geology.{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=1.191-6}}

From September 1837 to December 1838, Ruskin's ''The Poetry of Architecture'' was serialised in Loudon's ''Architectural Magazine'', under the pen name "Kata Phusin" (Greek for "According to Nature").{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=1.4-188}} It was a study of cottages, villas, and other dwellings centred on a Wordsworthian argument that buildings should be sympathetic to their immediate environment and use local materials. It anticipated key themes in his later writings. In 1839, Ruskin's "Remarks on the Present State of Meteorological Science" was published in ''Transactions of the Meteorological Society''.{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=1.206-10}}

===Oxford===
In [[Michaelmas term|Michaelmas]] 1836, Ruskin [[Matriculation|matriculated]] at the [[University of Oxford]], taking up residence at [[Christ Church, Oxford|Christ Church]] in January of the following year.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.artmagick.com/poetry/poem.aspx?id=11553&name=john-ruskin-christ-church-oxford |title=Christ Church, Oxford by John Ruskin :: ArtMagick Illustrated Poetry Collection :: Artmagick.com |access-date=5 September 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111017013829/http://artmagick.com/poetry/poem.aspx?id=11553&name=john-ruskin-christ-church-oxford |archive-date=17 October 2011}}</ref> Enrolled as a [[gentleman-commoner]], he enjoyed equal status with his aristocratic peers. Ruskin was generally uninspired by Oxford and suffered bouts of illness. Perhaps the greatest advantage of his time there was in the few, close friendships he made. His tutor, the Rev Walter Lucas Brown, always encouraged him, as did a young senior tutor, [[Henry Liddell]] (later the father of [[Alice Liddell]]) and a private tutor, the Reverend [[Osborne Gordon]].<ref>Cynthia Gamble, ''John Ruskin, Henry James and the Shropshire Lads'' (New European Publications, 2008) chapters 3–4.</ref> He became close to the geologist and natural theologian [[William Buckland]]. Among his fellow undergraduates, Ruskin's most important friends were [[Charles Thomas Newton]] and [[Henry Acland]].

His most noteworthy success came in 1839 when, at the third attempt, he won the prestigious [[Newdigate Prize]] for poetry ([[Arthur Hugh Clough]] came second).<ref>For his winning poem, "Salsette and Elephanata", Cook and Wedderburn 2.90–100.</ref> He met [[William Wordsworth]], who was receiving an honorary degree, at the ceremony.

Ruskin's health was poor and he never became independent from his family during his time at Oxford. His mother took lodgings on High Street, where his father joined them at weekends. He was devastated to hear that his first love, Adèle Domecq, the second daughter of his father's business partner, had become engaged to a French nobleman. In April 1840, whilst revising for his examinations, he began to cough blood, which led to fears of consumption and a long break from Oxford travelling with his parents.<ref>[[Derrick Leon]], ''Ruskin: The Great Victorian'' (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949), pp. 54–56.</ref>

Before he returned to Oxford, Ruskin responded to a challenge that had been put to him by [[Effie Gray]], whom he later married: the twelve-year-old Effie had asked him to write a fairy story. During a six-week break at [[Leamington Spa]] to undergo Dr Jephson's (1798–1878) celebrated salt-water cure, Ruskin wrote his only work of fiction, the fable ''[[The King of the Golden River]]'' (not published until December 1850 (but imprinted 1851), with illustrations by [[Richard Doyle (illustrator)|Richard Doyle]]).{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=1.VI.305-54}} A work of Christian sacrificial morality and charity, it is set in the Alpine landscape Ruskin loved and knew so well. It remains the most translated of all his works.<ref>James S. Dearden, "The King of the Golden River: A Bio-Bibliographival Study" in Robert E. Rhodes and Del Ivan Janik, ''Studies in Ruskin: Essays in Honor of Van Akin Burd'' (Ohio University Press, 1982), pp. 32–59.</ref> Back at Oxford, in 1842 Ruskin sat for a pass degree, and was awarded an uncommon honorary double fourth-class degree in recognition of his achievements.<ref>Bradley, Alexander. “Ruskin at Oxford: Pupil and Master”, p. 750, ''Studies in English Literature'', 1500–1900 32, no. 4 (1992): 747–64. [https://doi.org/10.2307/450969 doi]</ref>

===''Modern Painters I'' (1843)===
[[File:Portrait of John Ruskin (4671937).jpg|thumb|Engraving of Ruskin by {{ill|Henry Sigismund Uhlrich|de|Heinrich Sigismund Uhlrich}}, {{circa|1860}}]]
For much of the period from late 1840 to autumn 1842, Ruskin was abroad with his parents, mainly in Italy. His studies of Italian art were chiefly guided by [[George Richmond (painter)|George Richmond]], to whom the Ruskins were introduced by [[Joseph Severn]], a friend of [[Keats]] (whose son, Arthur Severn, later married Ruskin's cousin, Joan). He was galvanised into writing a defence of J. M. W. Turner when he read an attack on several of Turner's pictures exhibited at the [[Royal Academy]]. It recalled an attack by the critic Rev [[John Eagles]] in ''[[Blackwood's Magazine]]'' in 1836, which had prompted Ruskin to write a long essay. John James had sent the piece to Turner, who did not wish it to be published. It finally appeared in 1903.<ref>[[Dinah Birch]] (ed.) ''Ruskin on Turner'' (Cassell, 1990) {{page needed|date=August 2012}}</ref>

Before Ruskin began ''[[Modern Painters]]'', John James Ruskin had begun collecting watercolours, including works by [[Samuel Prout]] and Turner. Both painters were among occasional guests of the Ruskins at Herne Hill, and 163 [[Denmark Hill]] (demolished 1947) to which the family moved in 1842.

What became the first volume of ''[[Modern Painters]]'' (1843), published by [[Smith, Elder & Co.]] under the anonymous authority of "A Graduate of Oxford", was Ruskin's answer to [[Joseph Mallord William Turner|Turner]]'s critics.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/ruskin/empi/index.htm |title=the electronic edition of John Ruskin's "Modern Painters" Volume I |website=Lancs.ac.uk |date=28 June 2002 |access-date=18 July 2017 |archive-date=18 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130318002345/http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/ruskin/empi/index.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Ruskin controversially argued that modern landscape painters—and in particular Turner—were superior to the so-called "[[Old Masters]]" of the post-[[Renaissance]] period. Ruskin maintained that, unlike Turner, Old Masters such as [[Gaspard Dughet]] (Gaspar Poussin), [[Claude Lorrain|Claude]], and [[Salvator Rosa]] favoured pictorial convention, and not "truth to nature". He explained that he meant "moral as well as material truth".{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=3.104}} The job of the artist is to observe the reality of nature and not to invent it in a studio{{mdash}}to render imaginatively on canvas what he has seen and understood, free of any rules of composition. For Ruskin, modern landscapists demonstrated superior understanding of the "truths" of water, air, clouds, stones, and vegetation, a profound appreciation of which Ruskin demonstrated in his own prose. He described works he had seen at the [[National Gallery]] and [[Dulwich Picture Gallery]] with extraordinary verbal felicity.

Although critics were slow to react and the reviews were mixed, many notable literary and artistic figures were impressed with the young man's work, including [[Charlotte Brontë]] and [[Elizabeth Gaskell]].<ref>Tim Hilton, ''John Ruskin: The Early Years'' (Yale University Press, 1985) p. 73.</ref> Suddenly Ruskin had found his métier, and in one leap helped redefine the genre of art criticism, mixing a discourse of polemic with aesthetics, scientific observation and ethics. It cemented Ruskin's relationship with Turner. After the artist died in 1851, Ruskin catalogued nearly 20,000 sketches that Turner gave to the British nation.

===1845 tour and ''Modern Painters II'' (1846)===
Ruskin toured the continent with his parents again during 1844, visiting [[Chamonix]] and [[Paris]], studying the geology of the Alps and the paintings of [[Titian]], [[Paolo Veronese|Veronese]] and [[Perugino]] among others at the [[Louvre]]. In 1845, at the age of 26, he undertook to travel without his parents for the first time. It provided him with an opportunity to study medieval art and architecture in France, Switzerland and especially Italy. In [[Lucca]] he saw the Tomb of Ilaria del Carretto by [[Jacopo della Quercia]], which Ruskin considered the exemplar of Christian sculpture (he later associated it with the then object of his love, [[Rose La Touche]]). He drew inspiration from what he saw at the [[Camposanto Monumentale|Campo Santo]] in [[Pisa]], and in [[Florence]]. In [[Venice]], he was particularly impressed by the works of [[Fra Angelico]] and [[Giotto]] in [[San Marco|St Mark's Cathedral]], and [[Tintoretto]] in the [[Scuola di San Rocco]], but he was alarmed by the combined effects of decay and modernisation on the city: "Venice is lost to me", he wrote.<ref>Q. in Harold I. Shapiro (ed.), ''Ruskin in Italy: Letters to His Parents 1845'' (Clarendon Press, 1972), pp.200–01.</ref> It finally convinced him that architectural restoration was destruction, and that the only true and faithful action was preservation and conservation.

Drawing on his travels, he wrote the second volume of ''Modern Painters'' (published April 1846).{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=4.25-218}} The volume concentrated on Renaissance and pre-Renaissance artists rather than on Turner. It was a more theoretical work than its predecessor. Ruskin explicitly linked the aesthetic and the divine, arguing that truth, beauty and religion are inextricably bound together: "the Beautiful as a gift of God".{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=4.47 (''Modern Painters II'')}} In defining categories of beauty and imagination, Ruskin argued that all great artists must perceive beauty and, with their imagination, communicate it creatively by means of symbolic representation. Generally, critics gave this second volume a warmer reception, although many found the attack on the aesthetic orthodoxy associated with [[Joshua Reynolds]] difficult to accept.<ref>See J. L. Bradley (ed.), ''Ruskin: The Critical Heritage'' (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984),  pp. 88–95.</ref> In the summer, Ruskin was abroad again with his father, who still hoped his son might become a poet, even [[poet laureate]], just one among many factors increasing the tension between them.