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Giotto and his works in Padua
John Ruskin was born in England in 1819. He was a critic of art, architecture and society. He was a Victorian sage and gifted painter. He goal with his writings was to cause widespread cultural and social change. This combination of the religious intensity of the Evangelical Revival and the artistic excitement of English Romantic painting laid the foundations of Ruskin's later views.
The Encyclopedia Britannica sums up Ruskin as follows. "Ruskin has gradually been rediscovered. His formative importance as a thinker about ecology, about the conservation of buildings and environments, about Romantic painting, about art education, and about the human cost of the mechanization of work became steadily more obvious. The outstanding quality of his own drawings and watercolors (modestly treated in his lifetime as working notes or amateur sketches) was increasingly acknowledged, as was his role as a stimulus to the flowering of British painting, architecture, and decorative art in the second half of the 19th century."
Giotto was a 13th century Italian painter and architect. He is generally considered the first of the great artists who contributed to the Italian Renaissance. Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel commonly called the Arena Chapel, completed around 1305. His frescos depict the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ. They are some of the greatest artistic works of the Renaissance.
The Encyclopedia Britannica sums up Ruskin as follows. "Ruskin has gradually been rediscovered. His formative importance as a thinker about ecology, about the conservation of buildings and environments, about Romantic painting, about art education, and about the human cost of the mechanization of work became steadily more obvious. The outstanding quality of his own drawings and watercolors (modestly treated in his lifetime as working notes or amateur sketches) was increasingly acknowledged, as was his role as a stimulus to the flowering of British painting, architecture, and decorative art in the second half of the 19th century."
Giotto was a 13th century Italian painter and architect. He is generally considered the first of the great artists who contributed to the Italian Renaissance. Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel commonly called the Arena Chapel, completed around 1305. His frescos depict the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ. They are some of the greatest artistic works of the Renaissance.
- GenresArt
96 pages, Paperback
First published August 28, 1992
11 people are currently reading
86 people want to read
About the author
John Ruskin
3,765 books489 followersLibrarian 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 19, 2016
For Proust geeks or art freaks, this classic text from the erudite John Ruskin talks of the magnificent frescos left in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua by the 13th C master, Giotto. Proust spent lots of pages fauning over these frescos which he discovered on his trip to the Veneto and in particular the depiction of Charity, Envy and Justice. I made the pilgrimage to Padua to see the Chapel armed with Proust and Ruskin and was just as enchanted as they were. Ruskin's book is a perfect guide for maximizing your visit and for marveling at Giotto's genius.
July 5, 2025
Interesting read as a document of Victorian approaches to medieval art, but if you want a genuinely penetrating analysis of the arena chapel, I wouldn’t recommend Ruskin. He was primarily an aesthetician, and is thus completely uninterested in historical/theological backgrounds which, as sacred art, are vital. Also, the commentaries, written as they are for Victorian subscribers, indulge a view of Giotto as a sort of founder of modern art (Ruskin famously calls him an early bearer of the ‘flaming cross of truth’), and thus offers no insights as to just how saturated the frescoes are in medieval thought and culture (something on which more recent scholarship is generally in consensus)
TL/DR: if you’re interested in Victorian art history and the historiography of medieval art, read it. If you want to actually know what Giotto was on about, find something else.
For probably the most recent and most comprehensive art historical book, I’d recommend Henrike Lange’s “The triumph of Humility”, which will direct you to other more classic works in its bibliography as well
TL/DR: if you’re interested in Victorian art history and the historiography of medieval art, read it. If you want to actually know what Giotto was on about, find something else.
For probably the most recent and most comprehensive art historical book, I’d recommend Henrike Lange’s “The triumph of Humility”, which will direct you to other more classic works in its bibliography as well
June 10, 2025
The Scrovegni Chapel painted by Giotto in 1305 is one of the highpoints of Western Art and a visit is a sublime experience. John Ruskin writes beautifully about Giotto and the paintings.
My blog (with pictures): https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...
My blog (with pictures): https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews