Editing John Ruskin (section)

===''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.