The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century

by John Ruskin

Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February 4th and 11th, 1884

Genres: Nonfiction

68 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1884

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

[Brendan Day]

There’s always value in reminding yourself of how little we knew. Ruskin’s lectures contain brilliant examples of the innocuous observations that led to scientific breakthroughs, and the mad number of words it took Victorian writers to say anything.

[Lorraine]

I think it's fascinating that Ruskin was able to identify meterological changes that we now know were directly caused by the Industrial Revolution although he was roundly derided in the press and disbelieved at the time. What astonishes me most is the degree to which he acutely observes the world around him: detailed observations of colors and shapes and textures. I am so profoundly unobservant, and that way of moving through the world seems delightfully alien to me.

[Jamilla Smith-Joseph]

Review to come later in the week.

[Joseph Sverker]

I didn't quite catch the environmentalism in this book. Maybe I read to too sloppily.