John Ruskin

''For as I look deeper into the mirror, I find myself a more curious person than I had thought.''John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a towering figure of the nineteenth century: an art critic who spoke up for J. M. W. Turner and for the art of the Italian Middle Ages; a social critic whose aspiration for, and disappointment in, the future of Great Britain was expressed in some of the most vibrant prose in the language. Ruskin''s incomplete autobiography was written between periods of serious mental illness at the end of his career, and is an eloquent analysis of the guiding powers of his life, both public and private. An elegy for lost places and people, Praeterita recounts Ruskin''s intense childhood, his time as an undergraduate at Oxford, and, most of all, his journeys across France, the Alps, and northern Italy. Attentive to the human or divine meaning of everything around him, Praeterita is an astonishing account of revelation. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

John Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River was the first literary fairy tale in English. Includes Richard Doyle’s original illustrations and Simon Cooke’s essay.John Ruskin wrote this fable for a teenage family friend, Effie, and later he married her. The marriage was famously disastrous, but before it fell apart the Ruskins allowed The King of the Golden River to be published. It became one of the most popular works for children of its time. Richard Doyle contributed over 25 full-page illustrations and vignettes. The King of the Golden River is the first literary fairy tale in English (as opposed to collected folk tales). Ruskin himself said it was ‘a fairly good imitation of Grimm and Dickens, mixed with some true Alpine feeling of my own’. Later he spoke of the capacity of the traditional tales ‘to fortify children against the glacial cold of selfish science’. It remains a powerful fable about humanity’s dual capacity for destructiveness and redeeming love, with as strange fairy-tale creatures as one could hope to meet. An essay by Simon Cooke explains the book’s importance.

In the early 1850s, John Ruskin published The Stones of Venice, a history of Venetian architecture. He asserted the moral and aesthetic superiority of Venice's medieval buildings over structures from the Renaissance period. Ruskin's engaging and beautifully crafted prose inspired his Anglo-American readers to travel to Venice, to construct Gothic Revival buildings in their own cities, and to critically examine the moral virtues of modern society and how those principles are reflected in modern architecture. Since 1904, only abridged editions of The Stones of Venice have been published – all of which sacrifice Ruskin's didacticism in favour of the aestheticism of a few select passages. As the first unabridged edition in over a century, this book restores the context for those selections. It retains Ruskin's tripartite history of Venice and includes material omitted from abridged versions, including Ruskin's supplementary folio. It features reproductions of many of Ruskin's original sketches, which in previous editions appeared only as engraved copies. This edition includes his list of Venice's most important buildings, with endnotes updating their contemporary status, as well as an appendix with selections from other Venetian-themed texts by Ruskin. Introducing new readers to an important literary figure, this book also features an introductory essay that situates The Stones of Venice within John Ruskin's life and writings.

John Ruskin byl jedním z nejvlivnějších myslitelů 19. století. V širším povědomí figuruje především jako podporovatel Williama Turnera a prerafaelitů, případně jako neúspěšný manžel, jehož selhání nepřestalo budit voyeurskou zvědavost. Nás však bude zajímat coby vynikající umělecký kritik a autor provokativních estetických i společensko-ekonomických teorií, jehož vizi morální a sociální obnovy světa prostřednictvím umění, architektury a designu převzali a rozvíjeli zastánci velmi rozmanitých názorových pozic. Ironií osudu se na něj odvolávali nejen kritikové kapitalismu a milovníci gotické architektury, ale také avantgardisté odmítající tradici a přesvědčení o převaze nového nad zděděným. Avšak Ruskin byl kulturní pesimista a antimodernista, který už v polovině 19. století tušil, že perspektivy nabízené technickým pokrokem nemusí být nutně zárukou lepšího a šťastnějšího života. Úvod: Jindřich Vybíral