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Artistic fiction beautiful and ugly. John Ruskin biography

I have long wanted to tell interesting story oh... about the love triangle... Well, about a very strange triangle)

D. E. Milles. Portrait of Effie Gray

There was such a famous figure of the Victorian era, John Ruskin (born John Ruskin; 1819 - 1900) - English writer, artist, art theorist, literary critic and poet, who had a great influence on the development of art history and aesthetics of the second half of XIX- the beginning of the XX century.

Ephemia (Effie) Gray was born on May 7, 1828 in Perth in a house that her father bought from her father, John Ruskin. The seven of them were on good terms, so Ruskin could watch Effy mature and flourish. There was a 9 year difference between them.
There was also mutual sympathy. For Effy, John Ruskin wrote fantasy novel"King of the Golden River". The connection between them was encouraged by Effia's father, and the girl seemed suitable to Ruskin's parents. future wife for son.

J. E. Milles. Portrait of Effie Gray

John Ruskin courted Euphemia Gray for two years. The case ended in marriage. She was nineteen, he was twenty-nine. On the nuptial bed, John carefully pulled the dress from the shoulders of his beautiful wife and discovered, to his horror and shock, pubic hair.
John was outraged, deciding that the body of his beloved "is not created for the enjoyment of passion." He hugged his wife, turned on the other side and fell asleep. Effi felt rejected.
For the first wedding night followed by a six-year period of chastity, during which John skillfully invented more and more reasons for his refusal to fulfill his marital duty. For example, he said that he hates children and does not want an additional burden in the form of a pregnant or nursing Effy. The shock of Effy's body was Ruskin's first indication that he was completely unsuited for carnal relationships. His strange childhood, devoid of toys and communication with peers, prevented him from preparing for reality. adulthood. The Ruskins developed a certain style of behavior that outwardly suited both, although Effy never gave up the dream of having children (after her marriage, Effy's mother became pregnant with her thirteenth child). Ruskin's wife soon gained a reputation as a charming, intelligent and witty guest. She took care to maintain her chastity without giving rise to accusations of adultery.
She admired her husband: "I can never love anyone else in this world but John." But Ruskin finally began to openly admit that their marriage was a mistake. He declared that he would never fulfill his marital duty, that "it would be a sin to enter into such a relationship, and in the event of the appearance of children, the responsibility is too great, because I am completely unsuited for their upbringing."

At that time, John Ruskin, who had already become a man capable of dictating artistic taste to the public, took the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood under his patronage. He was especially disposed towards John Everett Millais, whom he considered the most gifted of them. He introduced Milles to his wife, and he persuaded her to pose for the picture. "Release Order".

The painting depicts the wife of a Scottish soldier arrested after the Jacobite Rising of 1745. She holds the child in her arms and hands the guard the order to release her husband as he clings to her.
Apparently, Milles began to fall in love with Effi already while working on the picture. And then Ruskin invited the young artist to accompany their family on a trip to Scotland.
Then Milles wrote famous portrait Ruskin, who is beginning to realize that feelings have arisen between his wife and ward.

The triangle could remain a triangle, but.....
In 1854, Effie finally made up her mind and told her friend Lady Eastlake, wife of Sir Charles Eastlake, President of the Royal Academy, about her situation. “Tell your parents,” she advised, “there are articles in the law that will help in your situation.” The Grays and their daughter hired lawyers and invited two doctors to examine Effie. Both declared that she was a virgin (one was literally dumbfounded by this).
London society turned on John because marriage without sex was considered as unheard of as sex before marriage.
The court eventually annulled the marriage on the basis that "John Ruskin was incapable of performing his marital duties on account of incurable impotence."

J. E. Milles. self-portrait
A year later, Effy married the artist John Everett Millais. The poor thing had to go through an unusual wedding night for the second time, as Milles burst into tears and admitted that, like John, he knew nothing about women and sex. Effi comforted and encouraged him. And two months later she was pregnant with the first of her eight children.

Milles went on to become the highest paid artist in the history of English art. In 1885 he received the title of baron, and a month before his death he became president of the Royal Academy.

J. E. Milles. Portrait of Effie Gray Milles

Sophie Gray 1857
This picture shows younger sister Effi-Sofia, who at the time of writing the canvas was 12 years old.

Milles died in 1896 and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. A great honor for the artist, who once shocked the public with his early works.
Effie briefly survived her husband and died in 1897. She was buried in the churchyard at Kinnwal.
By the way, it was this cemetery that Milles once depicted in his painting. "Rest Valley"

After his divorce from Effy, Ruskin returned to his parents. He remained chaste, but fell in love with little girls "at the first glimpse of their dawn", losing interest in them as soon as they entered the puberty phase.

However, with the nymphet Rosa Lyatush, everything turned out differently. John set out to marry her, despite several decades of difference.

Rose's mother became worried, turned to Effy, and she revealed to her all the intimate details of her life with John - or rather, their complete absence. Rosa's parents refused Ruskin.
Rose died of unknown causes three years later. The story of this love is mentioned more than once in Nabokov's Lolita, the film The Passion of John Ruskin was made about it.
In the 1870s, Ruskin's attacks of mental illness became more frequent on this basis, in 1885 he retired to his estate, which he did not leave until his death.
John died a virgin.

Born February 8, 1819 in London. Ruskin's parents were D. J. Reskin, one of the co-owners of the sherry import firm, and Margaret Cock, cousin. John grew up in an atmosphere of evangelical piety. However, his father loved art, and when the boy was 13 years old, the family traveled extensively in France, Belgium, Germany, and especially Switzerland. Ruskin studied drawing with English artists Copley Fielding and J.D. Harding and became a skilled draftsman. He depicted mainly architectural objects, especially admiring Gothic architecture.

In 1836 Ruskin entered Christ Church College, Oxford University, where he studied geology with W. Buckland. At the age of 21, his father gave him a generous allowance, and they both began to collect paintings by J. Turner (1775–1851). In 1839 Ruskin was awarded the Newdigate Prize for best poem on English language, however, in the spring of 1840, his further studies at Oxford were interrupted due to illness; he began to bleed, which the doctors saw as symptoms of tuberculosis.

In 1841, Ruskin began to supplement an essay written by him at the age of seventeen in defense of Turner's painting. The result was a five-volume work contemporary artists(Modern Painters), the first volume of which appeared in 1843.

In the spring of 1845 he undertook a journey through Switzerland to Lucca, Pisa, Florence and Venice, the first time he traveled without his parents, accompanied by a lackey and an old guide from Chamonix. Left to himself, he almost freed himself from Protestant prejudices and experienced boundless delight in religious painting from Fra Angelico to J. Tintoretto. He expressed his admiration in the second volume of Modern Artists (1846).

Focusing on Gothic architecture, Ruskin published The Seven Lamps of Architecture in 1849. Ruskin's characteristic moral rigor corresponded to the spirit Victorian England, his ideas about "architectural honesty" and the origin of ornamentation from natural forms remained influential for more than one generation.

Ruskin then turned to the study of Venetian architecture. Together with his wife, he spent two winters in Venice, collecting material for the book Stones of Venice (Stones of Venice), in which he intended to give a more concrete justification for the ideas set forth in the Seven Lamps, primarily their moral and political aspects. The book appeared at the height of the "Battle of Styles" raging in London; since the happiness of the working man was proclaimed in the book as one of the components of Gothic beauty, it became part of the program of the supporters of the Gothic revival, headed by W. Morris.

Returning to England, Ruskin defended the Pre-Raphaelites, whose exhibition at the Academy in 1851 was received with hostility. Ruskin befriended D. E. Milles, the youngest and most brilliant Pre-Raphaelite. Soon Milles and Ruskin's wife Effie fell in love with each other, and in July 1854, having achieved the annulment of the marriage with Ruskin, Effie married Milles.

For some time Ruskin taught drawing at the Workers' College in London, fell under the influence of T. Carlyle. Yielding to his father's insistence, Ruskin continued to work on the third and fourth volumes of Modern Artists. In 1857 he gave a lecture course in Manchester on The Political Economy of Art, later published under the title A Joy for Ever. From the sphere of art criticism, his interests have largely moved to the field of social transformation. Further development this topic was given in the book The Last, the First (Unto This Last, 1860), which marks the maturity of Ruskin's political and economic views. He advocated reforms in education, especially in the field of crafts, for universal employment and assistance to the elderly and the disabled. In the book, the last thing that was expressed to the first spiritual crisis Reskin. Beginning in 1860, he constantly suffered from nervous depression. In 1869 he was elected the first honorary professor of art at Oxford University. At Oxford, he worked hard, prepared for students a collection of works of art in originals and reproductions. In 1871, Ruskin began publishing a monthly publication, Fors Clavigera, addressed to the workers and laborers of Great Britain. In it, he announced the establishment of the Company of St. George, whose task was to create workshops on infertile lands where only manual labor would be used, as well as to open the beauty of handicraft production to workers from places like Sheffield and gradually negate the disastrous effects of the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.

By the end of 1873, Ruskin's state of mind began to affect his lectures. In 1878 he was crippled by a severe and prolonged mental illness. However, his memory did not fail him, and his last book, the autobiography of the Past (Praeterita, 1885-1889), became perhaps his most interesting work. Ruskin died in Brantwood (North Lancashire) on January 20, 1900.

Formations in the landscape of visited countries.

Among his works, the most famous are Lectures on Art (Eng. Lectures of Art,), “Artistic Fiction: Beautiful and Ugly” (Eng. Fiction: Fair and Foul), “English Art” (Eng. The Art of England), “Modern Artists” (eng. Modern Painters, -), as well as “The Nature of Gothic” (eng. The Nature of Gothic,), the famous chapter from the “Stones of Venice”, subsequently published by William Morris as a separate book. In total, Ruskin wrote fifty books, seven hundred articles and lectures.

Ruskin - art theorist

Ruskin did a lot to strengthen the position of the Pre-Raphaelites, for example, in the article "Pre-Raphaelitism" (eng. Pre-Raphaelitism,), and also greatly influenced the anti-bourgeois pathos of the movement. In addition, he "discovered" for contemporaries William Turner, painter and graphic artist, master landscape painting. In Modern Artists, Ruskin defends Turner from criticism and calls him "a great artist whose talent I was able to appreciate during my lifetime."

Ruskin also proclaimed the principle of “loyalty to Nature”: “Is it not because we love our creations more than His, we value colored glasses, and not bright clouds ... And, making fonts and erecting columns in honor of That ... we imagine that we will be forgiven for our shameful neglect of the hills and streams with which He endowed our habitation - the earth. As an ideal, he put forward medieval art, such masters of the Early Renaissance as Perugino, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini.

The rejection of mechanization and standardization was reflected in Ruskin's theory of architecture, an emphasis on the significance of the medieval Gothic style. Ruskin praised the Gothic style for its attachment to nature and natural forms, as well as for the desire to make the worker happy, which he, like the adherents of the "Gothic revival" led by William Morris, saw in the Gothic aesthetic. The nineteenth century tries to reproduce some Gothic forms (lancet arches, etc.), which is not enough to express the true Gothic feeling, faith and organicism. The Gothic style embodies the same moral values that Ruskin sees in art - the values of strength, firmness and inspiration.

classical architecture as opposed to gothic architecture expresses moral emptyness, regressive standardization. Ruskin associates classical values with modern development, in particular with the demoralizing effects of the Industrial Revolution, reflected in architectural phenomena such as the Crystal Palace. Many of Ruskin's works are devoted to issues of architecture, but he reflected his ideas most expressively in the essay "The Nature of Gothic" from the second volume of "The Stones of Venice" ( The Stones of Venice) in 1853, published at the height of the Battle of Styles raging in London. Beyond the apology gothic style, he spoke in it with criticism of the division of labor and the unregulated market advocated by the English political economy school.

Views on society

While teaching drawing at London's Workers' College, John Ruskin came under the influence of Thomas Carlyle. At this time, he began to be more interested in the ideas of transforming society as a whole, and not just in the theory of art. In the book Unto This Last (1860), which marked the formalization of Ruskin's political and economic views, he criticizes capitalism from the standpoint of Christian socialism, demanding reforms in education, universal employment and social assistance the disabled and the elderly. In 1908, Ruskin's work was translated into Gujarati by an Indian politician Mohandas Gandhi called Sarvodaya.

In 1869 he was elected the first honorary professor of art at Oxford University, for whose students he collected a collection of works of art in originals and reproductions. Ruskin also gained great popularity among artisans and the working class - especially in light of the foundation he published from 1871 to 1886 monthly edition"Fors Clavigera" ("Letters to the Workers and Laborers of Great Britain"). Together with William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites, he sought to expose the workers of industrial areas to the beauty of handicraft production and to overcome the dehumanizing effects of mechanized labor with the help of artistic and industrial workshops, where only creative manual labor would be used. Ruskin himself led the first such workshop, called the Guild of St. George.

Personal crisis

In 1848 Ruskin married Effie Grey. The marriage was unsuccessful, the couple parted and in 1854 got a divorce, and in 1855 Effie married the artist

John Ruskin (or Ruskin) was distinguished by many talents. He was a prominent art theorist, artist, literary critic, a poet and writer, in whose prose even Marcel Proust was in love. In total, Ruskin wrote fifty books and seven hundred articles and lectures, most of which are devoted to art in general and architecture in particular.

John Ruskin was born on February 8, 1819 in London. His grandfather was a chintz trader, and his father, who was a co-owner of a sherry import company, sold this product quite successfully. Despite the mundane occupation, John's father loved art, which undoubtedly influenced his son, as well as a strict religious upbringing, thanks to which John developed a religious and ethical understanding of life.

When John was thirteen, the family began to travel extensively in France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. During his travels, Ruskin kept a travel diary, in which he necessarily described the geological formations in the countries he visited. Much later, becoming a lecturer at Oxford University, where he himself studied, he insisted that future landscape painters must study biology and geology, as well as practice scientific drawing: “ On fine days I devote a little time to the painstaking study of nature; in bad weather, I take a leaf or a plant as a basis and draw them. This inevitably leads me to find out their botanical names.».

Ruskin himself studied drawing with the artists Copley Fielding and Harding and under their guidance became a skilled draftsman, however, he was mainly fascinated by architecture, especially Gothic. As for the University of Oxford, Ruskin's studies in geology with Buckland had to be interrupted due to suspicions of tuberculosis. However, the fears of doctors did not affect other hobbies. Even before this episode, Ruskin's first publication, The Poetry of Architecture, appears in the Architectural Journal; In 1839, Ruskin received the Newdige Prize for the best poem in English. At the end of the thirties, Ruskin, on the generous support allocated by his father, begins to collect paintings by William Turner, whose work he has been passionate about for a long time. At the age of seventeen, Ruskin even wrote an essay in defense of Turner, which years later resulted in the multi-volume work Modern Artists - the first volume appeared in 1843. Turner himself, they say, hardly caught the meaning of his ardent admirer's eulogies and did not even support the publication of the first of the articles about himself, which Ruskin's father sent to the artist.

In 1845, Ruskin traveled to Switzerland and Italy, where he was delighted with the religious painting of Fra Angelico and Tintoretto. This enthusiasm resulted in the second volume of Modern Artists, published in 1846. Three years later, Ruskin published an essay dedicated to another of his passions - Gothic architecture - "The Seven Lights of Architecture". Labor, in general, remained unclaimed due to Ruskin's naive utopianism and old-fashionedness against the background of the avant-garde, social revolutions and the progress of science and technology.

Ruskin, at the insistence of his father, continues to write the work "Modern Artists", lectures on "Political Economy in Art" at the University of Manchester, writes a book on this topic "Last as First". He supports education reforms, especially in the field of crafts, advocates for universal employment and assistance to the disabled and the elderly. In 1871, he began publishing Fors Clavigera, a monthly publication for the workers of Great Britain, in which he tells of the founding of the Company of St. George, which was supposed to create workshops where only manual labor was used, to reveal the beauty of handicraft to workers, and also to nullify the consequences of the industrial revolution.

John Ruskin at work in Brentwood, 1881.

In 1851, the Academy hosted an exhibition of the Pre-Raphaelites, which was received rather hostilely. Ruskin came to their defense, wrote the article "Pre-Raphaelitism" and became friends with the most prominent representative currents by John Everett Milles, to whom Ruskin's wife Effie Gray subsequently left. At the same time, in the fifties and sixties, Ruskin is in love with Rosa La Touche, who at the time of the acquaintance was only ten years old. When the girl turned 18, Ruskin proposes to her, but is refused. In 1872, he tries again, and is again refused, this time definitively. Three years later, for an unknown reason, Rosa dies, and on this basis, Ruskin's mental illness attacks, which began back in the sixties, become more frequent, in 1885 he retires to his estate, which he does not leave until his death in 1900.

Formations in the landscape of visited countries.

Ruskin - art theorist

Ruskin did a lot to strengthen the position of the Pre-Raphaelites, for example, in the article "Pre-Raphaelitism" (eng. Pre-Raphaelitism,), and also greatly influenced the anti-bourgeois pathos of the movement. In addition, he "discovered" for his contemporaries William Turner, a painter and graphic artist, a master of landscape painting. In Modern Artists, Ruskin defends Turner from criticism and calls him "a great artist whose talent I was able to appreciate during my lifetime."

The rejection of mechanization and standardization was reflected in Ruskin's theory of architecture, an emphasis on the significance of the medieval Gothic style. Ruskin praised the Gothic style for its attachment to nature and natural forms, as well as the desire to make the worker happy, which he, like the "Gothic revivalists" led by William Morris, saw in the Gothic aesthetic. The nineteenth century tries to reproduce some Gothic forms (lancet arches, etc.), which is not enough to express the true Gothic feeling, faith and organicism. The Gothic style embodies the same moral values that Ruskin sees in art - the values of strength, firmness and inspiration.

Classical architecture, in contrast to Gothic architecture, expresses moral emptiness, regressive standardization. Ruskin links classical values to modern development, in particular the demoralizing effects of the Industrial Revolution, reflected in architectural phenomena such as the Crystal Palace. Much of Ruskin’s work is devoted to architecture, but he expressed his ideas most expressively in the essay “The Nature of Gothic” from the second volume of The Stones of Venice in 1853, published at the height of the storm in London. Style Battles. In addition to an apology for the Gothic style, he criticized the division of labor and the unregulated market advocated by the English political economy school.

Views on society

While teaching drawing at London's Workers' College, John Ruskin came under the influence of Thomas Carlyle. At this time, he began to be more interested in the ideas of transforming society as a whole, and not just in the theory of art. In the book Unto This Last (1860), which marked the formalization of Ruskin's political and economic views, he criticizes capitalism from the standpoint of Christian socialism, demanding reforms in education, universal employment and social assistance to the disabled and the elderly . In 1908, this work by Ruskin was translated into Gujarati by the Indian politician Mohandas Gandhi under the title "Sarvodaya".

In 1869 he was elected the first honorary professor of art at Oxford University, for whose students he collected a collection of works of art in originals and reproductions. Ruskin also gained great popularity among artisans and the working class - especially in light of the foundation of his monthly publication Fors Clavigera (Letters to the Workers and Laborers of Great Britain) published from 1871 to 1886. Together with William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites, he sought to expose the workers of industrial areas to the beauty of handicraft production and to overcome the dehumanizing effects of mechanized labor with the help of artistic and industrial workshops, where only creative manual labor would be used. Ruskin himself led the first such workshop, called the Guild of St. George.