Exhibition Opening Conversation | Unto This Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin

good evening I'm Courtney J Martin the director of  the Yale Center for British art it is my pleasure   to welcome you and to introduce our speakers  for this evening celebration of unto this last   200 years of John Ruskin this exhibition and  its accompanying publication is the result of   what a University Art Museum can achieve when  students faculty and curators work together on   a project of the highest caliber this exhibition  has been curated by three doctoral candidates in   the department of the history of art at yale tara  contractor victoria Hepburn and Judith Stapleton   I'm so proud of you I have to say I'm very very  proud of the thuria we extend our utmost thanks to   them for bringing their expertise and enthusiasm  to this project we are also grateful to Tim   behringer Paul Mellon professor of the history of  art for guiding these students in the formation of   this exhibition and for editing its publication  additional contributions to the exhibition and   catalog have been made by former and current Yale  graduate students in the history of art Gabriella   Levy Haskell Sophie lenford Mohit Manohar and  Nicholas Robbins especially around the prize   the center's organizing curator of unto this last  is Courtney Skipton long acting assistant curator   of prints and drawings we owe her our sincere  thanks for stewarding the formation of this   exhibition from the very beginning until its end  this spirit of collaboration has carried over into   the technical organization and installation of  the exhibition and the production of its wonderful   catalogue special thanks ro to all staff in the  department's of exhibitions and publications   installation and to our registrar's above all we  owe special thanks to Amy Myers former director   of the center who initiated the project and  supported it throughout her tenure thank you Amy this is however not the center's first go-round  with Ruskin in 2000 we mounted an exhibition   to commemorate the centenary of Ruskin's death  Ruskin past present future was organized by our   former senior curator of prints and drawings  Gillian Forrester her exemplary research on   Turner and Ruskin provided the foundation  that made this current exhibition possible   of course we are also indebted to colleagues at  numerous institutions and to the many private   collectors who so generously agreed to share  their objects for this exhibition celebrating   Ruskin's Bicentennial our thanks go to the Morgan  Library and Museum the Harvard Art Museum's the   Fitzwilliam Museum the Metropolitan Museum of Art  and the New York Public Library I would also like   to recognize Jorge Otero pelos for his stunning  contemporary omage to Ruskin and Lawrence levorg   his studio manager for making possible the loan of  Jorge's work to this exhibition lastly at Yale we   especially wished wish to extend our appreciation  to our colleagues at the Beinecke Rare Book and   Manuscript library the Peabody Museum of Natural  History the Yale University art gallery and the   Yale University Library for their generous  collaboration their work has made this cross   campus collaboration possible and it is because  of their remarkable commitment to partnership   that this exhibition displays so many objects  from Yale's exceptional Ruskin holdings for the   very first time looking forward a version of unto  this last will travel to the watts gallery this   spring and now it is my great pleasure to welcome  Tim behringer to start the panel and conversation well thank you Courtney and it's a great  pleasure for us to be part of the one of   the first exhibitions that Courtney has been here  for as director and on behalf of the faculty and   students of Yale welcome back Courtney and it's  a great pleasure and delight to have you here   and I echo Courtney's thanks to Amy Myers for  supporting this exhibition from its inception   and also actually like to thank the director  before that Patrick mikake who is here who   supported the previous Ruskin exhibition so we're  in a kind of multi-generational thank-you mode to   start this but I want to open with the words of  John Ruskin born 200 years ago in 1819 in his   first book Modern Painters volume 1 published in  1843 Ruskin describes Venice as seen in these two   paintings by Joseph Mallord William Turner  exhibited at the Royal Academy the previous   year 1840 - here's Ruskin but let us take with  Turner the last and greatest step of all thank   heaven we are in sunshine again and what sunshine  not the gloried gloomy plague like oppression of   Canaletto but the white flashing fullness of  dazzling light which the waves drink and the   clouds breathe bounding and burning in intensity  of joy that sky it is a very visible infinity   liquid methylate measureless unfathomable panting  and melting through the chasms in the long fields   of snow white flaked snow slow-moving vapor  that guide the eye along their multitudinous   waves down to the island addressed of the  hills dreamlike and dim but glorious the   unnumbered palaces lift their shafts out of the  hollow sea pale ranks of motionless flame their   mighty towers sent up to heaven like tongues of  more eager fire their gray domes looming vast   and dark like eclipsed worlds their sculptured  arabesques and purple marble fading father and   fainter League beyond League lost in the light  of distance yes mr Turner we are in Venice now   John Ruskin remains perhaps the most eloquent of  all writers in on art in the English language his   passionate rhetoric marrying the cadence of the  King James Bible with the imagery of the Romantic   poets introduced Victorian readers to modern and  historical art established the pre-raphaelites as   a powerful avant-garde force in British art and  cemented the critical legacy of JMW Turner who   is represented in our exhibition by this great  painting on loan from the Metropolitan Museum   Ruskin became a passionate advocate for Gothic  architecture and for the art of Italy from Giotto   to Tintoretto the english-language historiography  of art is unimaginable without his contribution   yet as we will hear tonight from the graduate  student curators of the exhibition and their   collaborators Ruskin's influence extends beyond  the sphere of the aesthetic or rather majesty   really expands that field so as to encompass  the great questions of ethics of human history   of theology and of ecology in which he was a  pioneer if we read the full Canon of his writings   a mere 39 volumes if you have the time Ruskin  forces us to address such profound questions   as these how does art relate to history what do  we mean by truth how should historical monuments   be understood and cared for how can we find a  responsible relationship between mankind and   nature and ultimately what is of value in human  life these are pressing questions for the world   today perhaps even more than they were in Ruskin's  lifetime indeed at this moment of precarity in war   world history a moment when mendacious presidents  and prime ministers wantonly ly and dissimulate   squandering the world's resources and funneling  untold riches to a tiny minority rather than   acting for the many let alone for the good  of the planet Ruskin's key considerations   preoccupy us preoccupy contemporary artists  and activists writers critics and theorists   a worldwide it is this Ruskin the radical the  theorist the visionary whom we explore in this   exhibition even as we abandon and even deplore  some of Ruskin solutions to the problems he so   eloquently identified the first volume of Ruskin's  book the stones of Venice was published in March   1851 just as the London public began to thrill to  the spectacle of Joseph's Paxton's Crystal Palace   rising in Hyde Park it was to become the site  of the Great Exhibition a hymn to the Machine   a high altar of capitalism and Empire Ruskin  turned his back on this rampant construction   of modernity gazing instead at the same time with  unparalleled intensity at the material traces of   late medieval Venice his magnificent drawing  of the south side of the Basilica of st. marks   from a private collection seen in our exhibition  upstairs the stones of Venice was both a history   of Venetian architecture and a fundamental  critique of society under industrial capitalism   he aimed and I quote to record as far as I may  the warning which seems to me to be uttered by   everyone of the fast gaining waves that beat like  passing bells against the stones of Venice the art   of Egypt Greece and Rome Ruskin argued or servile  because the workman was in both systems a slave in   terms of political status and imaginative freedom  in contrast the medieval or especially Christian   system of ornaments as Ruskin again in those  systems this slavery is done away with altogether   Christianity having recognized the individual  value of every soul for Ruskin the machine   aesthetic of 1851 and forced a tyranny over the  laborer a tyranny which of course is still alive   in the labor of the factories where our clothes  and computers are made today for Walmart or Apple   in China or Vietnam Ruskin suddenly abandons the  descriptive and analytical language of art history   in the stones of Venice and directly addresses the  consumer and now he says reader look around this   english room of yours which you've been proud  of so often because the work of it is so good   and strong the accurate moldings and perfect  polishing x' and the unerring adjustments of   STIs and wood and tempered steel but for Ruskin  Victorian furniture must be subjected to the same   process of interpretation as Venetian architecture  it must be read rightly in relation to the labor   of its construction if you treat men and women he  says quote like cog cog wheels and make their arms   strike curves like compasses you must unhuman eyes  them we the consumers of industrial products are   to blame he says for this barbaric regime Ruskin  says think when you buy something of the person   who made it and Ruskin saw this kind of labor  in the steel industry of Sheffield a Yorkshire   town he knew well and which became the focus of  his philanthropic endeavors including the museum   whose collections and installation we allude to  in the exhibition this brought together objects   of beauty for the instruction of Sheffield manual  workers including geological specimens illuminated   manuscripts and examples of work by Turner and  Ruskin himself underlying Ruskin's entire endeavor   is a credo laid out most vividly in the short  book from which we take our exhibition's title   unto this last published a collection of essays  published in 1862 the closing parish in' offers   one great fact clearly stated there is no wealth  but life life including all its powers of love of   joy and of admiration this simple statement  contradicts the entire edifice of economic   thinking in which wealth is calculated in monetary  terms as property or capital but the only riches   for Ruskin are those of true human experience so  Ruskin took the title we've adopted under this   last from the parable of the workers in the  vineyard in the Gospel according to Matthew   in which widely accepted economic ideas both of  the biblical era and now are refuted laborers   who only work late in the day are given a wage  equal to those who have toiled for many hours   and when the latter complained the owner of the  vineyard says I will give even unto this last as   unto thee Ruskin argues then for a communitarian  approach in which everyone is offered a decent   livelihood he expects workers to contribute to  society because of the usefulness of what they   do the poor and the deprived the last in line unto  this last should be treated with fairness Ruskin's   contribution though far exceeds the sphere  of the written word gifted as a draftsman he   insisted on the supremacy of the Faculty of sight  within human discourse he produced a large corpus   of watercolors and drawings many of which are  included in this exhibition not just finished   works of art but as working drawings towards his  larger project of understanding nature and the   world around him his knowledge of natural forms  from trees and plants to mountains and clouds   was honed by years of patient looking and drawing  he insisted that contemporary artists such as the   pre-raphaelites should look at the world with  similar clarity and analytic precision as in   William Holman hunts strayed sheep are English  coasts as he aged Ruskin became ever more aware   of the effects of industrialization on the  environment now any visitor to Victorian London   or Manchester would notice the suit belching  forth from factory chimneys but it was Ruskin   keen and penetrating eye that began to detect the  wider impact of human activities on climate and   light he intuited what modern climate science has  called the Anthropocene and became morbidly aware   of changes in the air changes that he described  in language that interwove empirical observation   with prophetic moral commentary in lectures  on the storm cloud of the 19th century Ruskin   identified a new phenomenon a cloud of Manchester  Devils darkness that looks to me he wrote as if   it were made of dead men's souls Ruskin intuited  the fatal consequences of climate change the final   move of our exhibition is to draw attention to  Ruskin's global influence while the effects of   his aesthetic writings can be seen in the Arts  and Crafts movements of the United States Germany   Poland Russia Japan and elsewhere it was his  radical social theory linking artistic production   to the reform of Labor that achieved global impact  in Britain under this last inspired William Morris   and the founders of the British Labour Party in  Japan groups of intellectuals formed to celebrate   crafts traditions while as well here a young  lawyer Mohandas K Gandhi read unto this last   in 1904 and quote determined to change my life in  accordance with the ideals of this book with that   decision the fate of the British Empire was  sealed as I've mentioned the answers Ruskin   offered for social problems are prescribed by the  limitations of the Victorian world in which they   were conceived and his authoritarian instincts  his notions of gender race and the restrictions   of social class chafe against axiomatic beliefs  and hard-won freedoms of our own time yet the   questions he raised were those that confront us  now as crises of existential proportions driven   by visual sensitivity Ruskin was prescient  about his thinking of the value of history   the social and ethical challenges presented  by in real capitalism and above all his eyes   revealed nature as a living system beautiful  and complex and warned us of the storm cloud   of our own making that threatens to destroy it  this evening's presentation will continue with   short thematic talks by the three curators of  the exhibition Tara contractor Victoria Hepburn   and Judith Stapleton they get seven minutes  each and then shorter remarks of four minutes   each by the graduate student contributors to the  catalogue Nikolas Robbins Gabi hat Levi Haskell   Mohit Manohar and Sophie Linford gets five minutes  since he's now a postdoc at Harvard so she gets an   extra an extra minute and our final speaker will  be Cortney that Skipton long acting assistant   curator of prints and drawings this exhibit  this exhibition then actually derives from   conversations held during seminars and reading  groups on the subject of Ruskin's works over   the last four years one of which took most of our  speakers tonight on a trip following in Ruskin's   own itineraries with a close encounter with the  Gothic at Bolton Abbey an industrial moment an   industrial encounter in Sheffield with an north  of England a taste of the Lake District sublime   Ruskin's home Brant wood and finally a chance to  discuss the stones of Venice in situ but I want   to I want to pay tribute to the creativity  and brilliance of this group of students in   bringing a new Ruskin to life each generation  has its own Ruskin and what you're about to   hear now is the Ruskin of the coming generation  of scholars the first of whom is Terra contract in an 1857 address to drawing students at the st.  Martin School of Art Ruskin explained that art   enabled them to say and see what they could not  otherwise say or see and to learn certain lessons   which they could not otherwise learn tonight I  want to explore what Ruskin's own art practice   particularly his nature sketching allowed him  to see and learn specifically I want to suggest   that Ruskin's drawing practice underpinned his  approach to social reform not only training him   to observe the world actively but also focusing  his attention onto the relationships between tiny   details and larger holes Ruskin astonishingly  did not understand himself as an artist always   maintaining that he was an amateur and yet  sketching profoundly shifted the way that   he saw the world he sketched nature nearly  every day from his teenage years onwards and   he studied with preeminent watercolorists of the  day such as Anthony Van Dyck Copley fielding the   president of the Auld watercolour society while  traveling through Europe with his parents in 1842   Ruskin began to experiment with a new style of  sketching which we can see on the pages of his   diary from me at that year one of the highlights  of our exhibition and one of the by Niki's Ruskin   treasures on these pages we can see Ruskin  breaking from the idealizing picturesque Scots   style he had been taught and instead focusing on  minut natural details with their subtle tints and   tiny curls these sketches speak to an absorbed  and engaged attention but this attention is not   myopic he later recalled that it was only while  sketching tree branches in 1842 that he came to   a life-changing revelation a revelation that  the branches quote fulfilled in their beauty   the same laws which guided the clouds divided  the light and balanced the wave by studying a   detail Ruskin gained a meaningful perspective  onto its place within a larger Universal whole   already sketching had become the bedrock of  Ruskin's intellectual life a daily practice of   mindful observation from which his worldview  arose Ruskin's later sketches continue to   explore the questions of interconnectivity and  interdependence that emerged in 1842 and indeed   these themes flow from his sketches into every  thread of his work in works like the rocky bank   a masterful double-sided sketch from the center's  collection we can see Ruskin continuing to think   through the relationship between details and  larger holes on one side of the paper we see a   dynamic landscape of rocks and water one in which  cloudy rapidly applied brushwork at the paper's   edges creates a sense of motion of forms blurring  and intermingling on the other side of the paper   we see a dynamic landscape of rocks and water or a  saree on the other side of the paper Ruskin zooms   in to consider a single narrow leaf plant such as  might sprout among the banks stones returning to   the recto though rocky Bank depicts only a small  section of a riverbank its monumentality invites   comparison with Ruskin's drawings of mountain  ranges in modern painters for the grooves in   the banks stone begin to take on the aspect of  mountain ridges while the streams mirror-like   surface recalls Ruskin's drawings of alpine lakes  the drawing expresses Ruskin's emerging sense soon   to be articulated in his published drawing manual  the elements of drawing that a stone should be   carefully studied as a quote mountain in miniature  end quote for nature can quote compressed as many   changes of form and structure on a small scale  as she needs for her mountains on a large one   describing stones as compressed mountains Ruskin  dignifies even the smallest parts of a system with   monumental significance it is indeed this idea of  a detail as a mountain and miniature which flows   from Ruskin sketches into his social theory which  consistently reads the health of human societies   within seemingly incidental details and which  likewise stresses the power and responsibility   of individuals let us recall for instance Ruskin's  approach to detail in the passage from the nature   of gothic which Tim discussed earlier the passage  in which Ruskin urges his reader to quote look   around this English room of yours and to read  the highly finished ornaments as quote signs of   a slavery in our England in such passages Ruskin  teaches his reader to see the world as he does in   his sketches to understand details the ornaments  in the readers sitting rooms as part of a larger   system in this case the exploitative system of  unregulated industrial capitalism Ruskin stresses   that social responsibility begins with clothes  looking with observing and reading details for   only by such looking can the readers see the  full effects of their actions as consumers in   a rhetorical move that parallels his descriptions  of stones as miniature mountains he transforms a   small room into an immense moral battleground  alerting readers to the mountainous weight and   complexity of their everyday choices armed  with the empowering yet daunting sense that   an individual's smallest action could ripple  through nature's systems and change the world   for good or evil Ruskin devoted the final decades  of his life to social reform though he undoubtedly   wished to effect change on a large scale he was  not willing to wait until this was possible making   do with small local projects from a flax mill  to an unsuccessful tea shop to a road building   project in Oxford shown here in a print from the  graphic which is an upstairs in the exhibition   he attempted to imagine a society which did not  yet exist in a whole but which yet might be built   detail by detail today in an era of globalization  it is all too easy to doubt the ability of any   single person to contribute in the fight against  the injustice 'as of our times arts too can easily   feel insignificant a mere pleasant distraction  Ruskin however can remind us why Art Matters for   Ruskin art making and specifically sketching is an  active engaged observation and an antidote against   apathy beautiful in themselves his drawings are  moving records of a heartfelt effort to understand   the world and meet his duties within it Ruskin  Intuit's from his sketching practice a radical   ethics that insists that each of us is a kind  of mountain and miniature that even the smallest   among us has significance in an increasingly  complex interconnected world thank you in his botanical study titled Proserpina Ruskin  turned to the perennial leaves on the trees in the   Garden of Eden they offered he explained a symbol  of an individual's lasting significance within a   larger system the forest of interconnected  humanity other symbols he claimed have been   given often to show the Evanescence and slightness  of our lives the foam upon the water the grass on   the housetop the vapor that vanishes away yet  none of these are images of true human life   that life when it is real is not evanescent is  not slight does not vanish away every noble life   leaves the fiber of it into woven forever in the  work of the world for his own part Ruskin may have   felt that the most palpable manifestation of his  contribution the material trace or fiber of his   own involvement in the work of the world took the  form of a different kind of leaf than those found   on a tree that is a printed page bound within a  book as he anticipated when he emulated engraved   illustrations and letterpress in his childhood  notebooks he was seven when he did this one   and this is two different leaves and it's in the  same book this would be the primary medium of his   life's work it was through printed and bound pages  that he would reach his audience in his attempts   to teach them what and how to see it will come as  no surprise then that first editions along with   proofs and manuscripts of Ruskin's books form  an important part of our exhibition in fact we   reproduced a plate from one of Ruskin's volumes  at the exhibition exhibition entrance and on the   cover of the catalog called the dryads waywardness  it's an exquisite steel engraving made by Richard   Parmenter cuff after a sketch by Ruskin similar  to those that Tara has just discussed it appears   as plate 59 the fifth and final volume of modern  painters Ruskin's wide-ranging and influential   series which ultimately explored in characteristic  complexity the nexus between art nature and   society the plate presents us with a disorienting  head-on view of an oak branch that appears to   emerge from the page like a ghostly apparition  the curve of its smaller branches suggested   to Ruskin the bow of a boat and by dint of cuffs  delicate engraved lines in the violet ink in which   it has been printed the entire plate resembles an  object floating on water sailing toward us through   mysterious purple mists the first volume of Modern  Painters published when its author was just 24 was   as Tim has mentioned a defensive turner the young  Ruskin plied his readers with so much elaborate   description some of which you've just heard that  Charlotte Bronte claimed I feel now as if I had   been walking blind fold this book seems to give  me eyes yet despite the importance of vision   in modern painters it wasn't until the third  volume published in 1856 that Ruskin included   illustrations appropriately titled of many things  this volume is filled with an assortment of   images produced by a cadre of skilled men and  women using a variety of printing techniques   bright chromolithography mezzo tints stealing wood  engravings steel and wood engravings and Ruskin's   own edgings can all be found within its pages  in an effect that remains present in the fourth   and fifth volumes of modern painters every turn of  the page appears to reveal a new representational   modality mimicking a rough skin Ian's view of  the world that is free from visual convention and   we're thrilled to be able to show the Beinecke  ease first editions of Modern Painters open to   multiple pages to properly display this effect  one of the most compelling illustrations in Modern   Painters 3 is plate 4 ramifications according  to Claude and it displays various tree trunks   and branches chopped and pruned from works by the  17th century French painter Claude Lorrain Claude   was a frequent object of Rus skins are for his  perceived inattention to nature's truth and this   plate is intended to denigrate rather than applaud  the artist the engraver this time John Henry Lee Q   appears to have struggled in his initial attempts  to make clods trees adequately horrifying for   Ruskin and in a letter replete with a sketch of  a two-pronged table fork Ruskin wrote to him you   will see by looking at the thing in this light how  much more Claude spouse always resemble this the   dryads waywardness in Modern Painters vibe offers  an antidote to clogs monotonous Fork like branches   but the engravings lesson goes much deeper than  mere artistic correction returning to the topic   of tree limbs in this later volume Ruskin implores  artists to capture the complicated foreshortening   of an oak branch as it grows in nature observing  and depicting it in this way he argues allows us   to appreciate a profound truth in its form it's  quote tendency to throw its sprays or limbs in   order to avoid the branch next to it as well as  its forward action in a sweeping curve which it   takes to recover its position after its concession  the obliging cooperative nature of the oak the way   its branches yield to those around it curving to  make room for them to grow alludes to what Ruskin   called the law of help which he perceived in  nature and extended into art and then into society   in Modern Painters 5 it should be noted that this  final volume of Modern Painters was published in   June 1860 just months before the first article of  unto this last appeared in which Ruskin's ideas   on cooperation in opposition to greed driven  individualism were fully outlined it's perhaps   no coincidence that the dryads waywardness the  most affecting of Ruskin's illustrations was   published at a time when his observations of  the world around him were he thought taking on   an ever greater moral urgency as we know Ruskin  was a great lover of gothic architecture and he   likened medieval manuscripts to fairy cathedrals  if we wanted to be similarly fanciful we might   think of the first editions of Modern Painters  along similar lines the five volumes spans 17   years with lengthy stops and starts between them  suggesting the protracted and often disjointed   project of Cathedral building and if we equate  the volumes of Modern Painters with a Cathedral   then we could though the analogy is imperfect  consider the illustrations within its pages   as something like architectural sculptures and  ornaments Ruskin championed Byzantine and gothic   carvings and mosaics for their changefulness  and their variety turning the corner of a gothic   building revealed to him a seemingly inexhaustible  diversity of visual and material information each   sculpture and ornament had a unique story to tell  and so Ruskin believed a crucial moral lesson to   teach by design turning the pages in one of his  illustration a similar response in its reader   I'd like to end by mentioning that thanks to  the PDFs of his collected works hosted online   by Lancaster University many of us who set out  to read some of Ruskin's nine million published   words or to peruse his illustrations do so  today by digital means there is nonetheless   something significant in a material encounter  with the Leeds of his first editions which is   how he initially intended us for us to receive  his work and I hope you'll get a sense of just   how powerful these books are as you experience  them upstairs in our exhibition thank you John Ruskin lived in an age of iron over the  course of his lifetime this paradigm attic   material of industrialization transformed his  society and the natural world around him speaking   of iron railroads running like arteries through  Britain and Europe Ruskin described them with   a language of armed conquest citing iron roads  tearing up the surface of Europe as grapeshot to   the sea traveling through Britain he saw this  destruction mirrored in the landscapes he had   spent his life teaching others to cherish now  blighted by quarries factories and chimneys in   1877 he gave a lecture to the students of Oxford  University where he was slayed professor of Fine   Arts one record of which survives today written  by his student Alfred Houseman later known as   the poet AE it records that Ruskin wheeled into  his classroom one day a watercolor by JMW Turner   of a view of the town of Leicester that work does  not survive so for this evening I have substituted   Turner's 1817 watercolour of the valley of the  river loon which is shown here taking a paintbrush   and a box of paints Ruskin demonstrated the  supposed improvements of his era by painting over   the watercolors protective glass a vision of what  he termed the vandalism of modern industry with   black he painted a crude iron bridge across the  stream with purple paint he died the water with   runoff from an adjacent indigo factory with orange  he flew he through a flame of scarlet across the   sky representing factories and chimneys and with a  final parry cried the atmosphere is supplied thus   and dashed a broiling cloud of dark industrial  smoke into the sky this was Victorian Britain   a world Ruskin thought transformed into a ghastly  engine of industrial production which consumed for   its fuel not just Britain's green fields but also  the souls and bodies of the Industrial Workers   sent Ruskin wrote to fuel like fuel to feed the  factory smoke the iron industry epitomized for   rescue in the subjugation of the individual  laborer he spoke passionately of the dire   economic straits and dismal working conditions  of iron workers both male and female and harshly   condemned the tennis-playing and railroad flying  public who remained ignorant and uncaring in the   face of such destitution in 1875 feeling compelled  to do and not just write of the ills of society   Ruskin built a public museum the Museum of the  guild of st. George dedicated not to the wealthy   and the elite but to working people and it is  no accident that he constructed this museum in   Sheffield a town known for its iron production  for it was iron workers who constructed manually   with their hands forging their art with an iron  well who Ruskin felt might truly learn the lesson   conveyed by Gothic craftsmanship that art should  require effort of both hand and mind and that its   most valuable lessons would spring from nature  which offered food for the body and nourishment   for the Soul rejecting the industrialists use  of iron to build fences knives warships guns and   machines Ruskin asked his students and readers  to consider iron in its natural state here he   means not crystallized iron but the iron rich  soils which taint the land in orange and red we   see these okra stains expressed in Ruskin's 1854  watercolour fragment of the alps bands of ferrous   oxide swirl within this Alpine border they show  iron as a living element Ruskin felt the red bloom   of iron oxides oxides was nature's equivalent to  iron rich blood raising a blush to human cheeks   I am NOT Earth says the iron infused pebble in  Ruskin's prose I am Earth and air in one there   is a kind of soul in when iron mixes with oxygen  in the atmosphere when it breathes as reskin terms   it it turns to rust which he felt to be irons most  beautiful and useful state rust Wright's Ruskin   gathers itself into the Earth's from which we feed  and the stones with which we build into the rocks   that frame the mountain and the sands that buy  the bind the sea iron provides for man offering   nutrient-rich soil and stones for shelter the main  service of this metal Ruskin concludes is not in   making knives and scissors and pokers and pants  but in making the ground we feed from and nearly   all the substances first needful to our existence  i and then is not merely a tool for conquest   and manufacture but an active agent in human  ecology one that is both necessary to man and   metaphysically equivalent to him the unrepentant  desire in our modern society to mine this resource   unthinkingly in Ruskin's words to dig a pit for  iron stone to heap a mass of refuse on futile land   to blacken the sky and consume nature's fuel all  with the aim of producing meaningless commodities   was for Ruskin a perversion of the Privett  precious gifts of nature and a betrayal of the   highest order the question of what one individual  can do in the face of environmental devastation   is still asked today in his text the nature of  gothic Ruskin wrote do what you can and confess   frankly what you are unable to do neither let your  effort be shortened for fear of failure nor your   confession silenced for fear of shame as tara has  pointed out earlier this evening Ruskin's attempts   to effect larger change to resolve these issues  occurred on a small scale but they nevertheless   had great impact Ruskin used his influence to  help protect Britain's lake district against an   incursion of Railways he founded the guild of st.  George which aimed to promote and to a life driven   by industry and profit and purchase land and  cottages to achieve this goal from the beginning   to the end of his career through writing and  lectures and art he taught others to love nature   to see in it something both under threat and worth  protecting in doing so he inspired a generation of   environmentalists more radical than he including  William Morris and Octavia Hill to effect real   change Ruskin's warnings are thus to take care  with the products we make to offer a living wage   to guard against the industrial poisons which  darken our skies and to utilize the resources   of the soil but to neither abuse nor replete  them these are lessons we need most direly today when I first heard that the Yale Center for  British art was planning a Ruskin exhibition I   was ever so slightly dubious for reasons which  were entirely misplaced given the skill of the   three curators you've heard from already but  Ruskin is as you've no doubt gathered by now   deeply multifaceted something difficult to  communicate in a limited set of objects not   only does he write on a vast number of themes  from politics to geology and from work to the   weather but he furthermore appropriate for his own  purposes even source material he elsewhere seems   to resist Ruskin often ranged from indifference  to biting sarcasm regarding Charles Darwin's work   and yet mere months after Darwin writes the  expression of the emotions in man and animals   Ruskin more sincerely if perhaps with a twinkle  in his eye suggests that helmet crests mimic the   passions of Pride and anger which enabled nearly  all the lower creatures to erect some spinous or   Plumas ridge upon their heads or backs the last  being a central observation of Darwin's this mild   dissonance might seem out of step with a man  whose avowed goal was a search for truth but   indeed there in line with his deeper truths  its concern lies not with the specificities   of biology but with the moral resonances he  could draw out of them born an Anglican and   raised by an evangelical mother Ruskin describes  his own childhood course of reading as a yearly   trudge through the whole Bible every syllable  through aloud hard names in all from Genesis   to the apocalypse he writes in for terra de  as an adult Ruskin befriended some of the   most popular preachers of his day and together  that trudged and their sermons begin to explain   Ruskin's rather metaphorical approach to details  of science politics indeed the world he treats his   search for truth like a kind of typology seeing  knowledge of society and the divine latent even   potentially in Darwin by typology I here mean  the idea in theology that you can find figures   or events in the New Testament prefigured in  the Old Testament that for example Jonah's   escaped from the belly of the whale presages  Christ's resurrection if the events of the Old   Testament can in this way foreshadow the events  of the new why could not geology foreshadow the   nature of society in Ruskin's hands everything  becomes material perhaps this explains and I'm   going to show this map the curators let me design  for them very briefly but I encourage you to look   more closely at it on the iPads upstairs where  you can learn more about each location from the   curators descriptions perhaps this explains  at least in part the breadth of engagement   with Ruskin and his work because he touches on  practically everything everyone can find something   in Ruskin and I'll have to eat my hat because as  I suggested before Tara Judith and Victoria have   in this exhibition vividly demonstrated this  very aspect of Ruskin moving back to the image   I started with this cover of the April 8 1886  edition of the weekly Victorian periodical the   Christian million suits the bold Proclamation made  by the article inside Ruskin is a seer who gazes   into the future who seizes the elements and rests  their secrets who penetrates into the mysteries of   the unfathomable and learns the story of creation  whether or not you're prepared to agree with his   many claims I hope you'll agree with me when  you proceed upstairs to see the exhibition   these three have prepared that Ruskin search for  truth ranged far and deep in his Victorian world as we've heard about already tonight one of  the many things which the exhibition upstairs   beautifully demonstrates is the important legacy  of ecological thought and praxis that Ruskin has   left to us in many ways we are in a position  similar to his when in the winter of 1884 he   delivered the series of lectures titled stormcloud  of the 19th century to an audience in London about   which we have already heard from Tim and Judith  like Ruskin we face a bewildering set of changes   to the environment one changes for which we  grapple to find language in this moment we turn   to the past full of a desire that we might find  the materials from which to shape a revisionary   legacy of ecological reparative thought Ruskin in  1884 also returned to the Past with a revisionist   I but in his case he turned to his own personal  archive of writings and pictures stored up from   the decades of close immersed attention to natural  systems that we see in the drawings and books   upstairs this history of recorded experience  such as the watercolor of a sky at his home   in Brentwood in 1880 seen engraved here formed  the evidence that he presented to his London   audience of the trembling blanching filthy plague  wind encroaching upon the skies of industrial   modernity his audience was not convinced or rather  if his digressive passionate lectures convinced   them of anything it was that he had lost his mind  while Ruskin struggled mightily from his series   of progressively severe breakdowns he was far  from unaware that his storm cloud lectures were   marked by an almost hallucinatory ferocity to  the natural world he said in his preface to his   published lectures that his text had been quote  thrown into form we might understand this phrase   to describe his experience of the storm cloud  itself his account of this new climate slips   through geographical registers redoubles back upon  itself shifting abruptly from meditations on the   past to projections of the future the effect  of the storm cloud casts him into a crisis of   spatial and temporal form a place of vulnerability  from which he attempted nevertheless to prove that   this polluted skies of majority modernity were  caused by much more than Manchester's factories   it was instead the perverted systems of value and  violent indifference to nature and its divinity on   which he laid blame for skies now full of dead man  souls as Tim quoted earlier as ever what sounds   in Ruskin like mysticism or lunacy is in fact a  multi-layered act of interpretation here linking   spiritual to physical and ecological death about  practices of sustainability for example there is   much to learn from Ruskin and from other aspects  of his environmental thought which mirrored the   uneven distributions of ecological precarity  under systems of capitalism and imperialism we   learn what will have to be finally left behind but  I think we can also learn from his storm cloud how   to dwell in the strange in constant space and  time of climate change to be at once the wound   as Brian Dylan writes and the piercing act of  precision Ruskin shows us how to be thrown how   to say sense8 to the strange shifts of the world  around us while simultaneously remaining fixed   upon the seemingly impossible reconstruction  of society to of life in all its forms I'm now going to bring the story to this side of  the pond I have much to thank America for Ruskin   wrote in 1855 in an open letter published in  the crayon the United States first art journal   America had given him he continued quote a hearty  er appreciation than I have ever met in England   nothing gives me greater pleasure than the thought  of being of use to an American and if I can in any   way oblige any Americans who are interested in  art I beg that you will call upon me in 1863 a   group of American artists architects critics and  scientists many of whom had called upon Ruskin   in England came together in New York to found  the Association for the Advancement of truth in   art known as the American pre-raphaelites the  groups painters aspired to meticulous realism   following Ruskin's example as well as that of his  British followers the pre-raphaelite Brotherhood   in the United States the terms Ruskin Ian and  pre-raphaelite were often synonymous referring   to the minut transcription of botanical and  geological elements in this sense American   practitioners followed key stylistic choices  made by British pre-raphaelites but rejected   the London artists interest in medieval biblical  and Shakespearean narratives in favour of the   landscapes nature studies and still lifes that  were central to Ruskin's own artistic practice   the American pre-raphaelites were crucial  vehicles in the transmission of reskins   teachings across the Atlantic although the group's  painters attained little commercial success the   American pre-raphaelite Architects designed major  structures during the eighteen 60s peter bonnet   white one of the american pre-raphaelites founders  received the prestigious commission to design   a gothic building here in New Haven that would  serve as Yale's School of the Fine Arts now known   as Street Hall and one of the three buildings  that today comprised the Yale University Art   Gallery when white began discussions with Yale  his proposal for an Italian gothic polychrome   structure had recently been selected for the new  National Academy of Design in New York an ardent   reader of Ruskin white had assimilated Ruskin's  apotheosis of the Gothic as the architectural   form most functionally adaptable ornamentally  expressive and supportive of communal vibrancy   and the integrity of labor a great principle of  the Gothic Revival Ruskin explained quote is that   all architectural ornamentation should be executed  by the men who design it and should be of various   degrees of excellence admitting the intelligent  cooperation of various classes of workmen White's   designs for Street Hall were attentive to Ruskin's  injunctions and followed the example set just a   few years earlier at the Oxford Museum which had  been designed with significant input from Ruskin   at Yale white allowed his Carver's Liberty of  expression resulting in an exuberance that can   be seen in the ornamentation of the exterior  capitals at the school's entrance executed by   a craftsman named Williams who carefully carved  into sandstone two distinct sprays of liverwort   leaves Ruskin insisted that local sourcing  of materials had been key to the achievement   of medieval cathedrals white acted decisively on  this principle he sought out nearby quarries that   allowed him to realize the polychrome effects of  Italian gothic design he selected four distinctly   hewed sand stones street halls foundation  was quarried from East Haven and its exterior   walls from Belleville New Jersey contrast stone  including the trim arches and capitals was sourced   from Portland Connecticut and brown home Ohio with  its materials ornamentation and carving techniques   emulating those at the Oxford Museum Street Hall  should be viewed as one of the most prominent   secular manifestations in America of Ruskin Ian  Gothic architecture the building's inaugural   exhibition placed Yale at the Nexus of Ruskin Ian  activity in 1860s America alone exhibition opened   in street hall in July 1867 showcasing a wide  sample of contemporary American art Yale faculty   allowed White's American pre-raphaelite colleagues  to prominently hang their own paintings in the new   galleries in the end over a quarter of the work  on display was by American pre-raphaelites in a   building designed by one of their own that summer  of 1867 the American pre-raphaelites fulfilled   a devout wish of Ruskin who wrote that quote  painting and sculpture attained their highest   perfection when associated with architecture at  Street Hall the American pre-raphaelites achieved   this vision of uniting painting architecture and  sculptural carving realizing Ruskin's own desire   of a decade earlier to quote be of the best use  I could to the cause of art in America thank you and I'm going to take the story to the other  end of the globe Gandhi read Ruskin's unto this   last in 1904 near the start of his extraordinary  political career at that time Gandhi was a young   lawyer and political activist living in South  Africa where he worked for the emancipation of   Indian and African libras the Boer War between the  British Empire and the South African Republic had   just ended and Gandhi had mobilized the Indian  community to head the British alas this did not   lead to a softening of the British astons against  the Indians who continued to face discrimination   and harassment and British control South Africa  unto this last made a strong impression on Gandhi   and he resolved to change his life according  to its principles it also showed him a way to   shake the foundation of the British Empire in his  autobiography Gandhi summarized the three lessons   he took from Ruskin's book first the good of the  individual is contained and the good of all second   the laws work has the same value as the barbers  and as much as all have the same right of earning   their livelihood from the work and third a life  of labour that is a life of the tiller of soil   or a handicrafts man as a life worth living so  important that Gandhi considered these lessons   that he taught more community more people in a  South African community should know it in 1908   he published a summarised translation of Ruskin  and Gujarati title Sarvodaya which means the   welfare of all which is the image you see here  and upstairs we have an English translation of   Gandhi's paraphrase the translation came out  in Indian opinion the newspaper operated by   Gandhi and indeed the whole operation of Indian  opinion was restructured to fit Ruskin's economic   policies for example each work of Indian opinion  regardless of rank received the same Gandhi also   Acree agreed with Ruskin's criticism of modern  machinery and intended to print and an opinion   by hand but has more practically minded friends  reason that a hand printed newspaper would be   prohibitively expensive and an opinion was  thus printed on a custom-made press with an   engine operated by petrol but which could  be operated by hand when the petrol ran out Gandhi developed raskins criticism of rampant  industrialization at great length in the wheel   of fortune in this book he offered the chakra  or the cotton spinning wheel as a corrective   to the ways industrialization was replacing  the value of human labor with purely economic   considerations of profit and loss through  the slow and deliberate act of spinning   cotton one could relearn the value of one's  own work and find the necessary inspiration   to live a self-sustained life for Gandhi only a  society that was not enslaved to the arbitrary   and dehumanized processes of industrialization  was capable of self-rule or Swaraj indeed the   lessons learned from spinning the chakra were  just as important as fighting for independence   as the back blurb of the book notes I am  indifferent to whatever else the country   may do so long as the cause of kadhi and charka  I looked over looked after it must be clearly   understood that there is no salvation for  us until the kadhi program is completely   worked to underline this point first editions  of this book such as the one on display in this   exhibition were bounded kadhi Gandhi continue  to engage with Ruskin's work throughout his   life in 1932 when reading false cleavage era he  remarked that his own ideas was so similar to   Ruskin's that a bystander would think that he had  plagiarized them this is a remarkable statement by   Gandhi reflecting not only his admiration  for Ruskin but also showing how Ruskin's   ideas lived on after his death and the actions  and thinking of the father of India thank you last but not least or perhaps unto this last but  not least I just want to very quickly express my   sincere thanks and admiration for the three of  you and all the fantastic work that you've done   and for Tim and for the two years that we've had  working on this together it's really magnificent   um so I'd like to use my seven minutes to discuss  a work on loan to us from the contemporary artist   architect and architectural preservationist  Jorge Orta repay us for his projects are in   direct conversation with Ruskin's ideas about  nature and the environment pollution and   historic preservation and I hope that you all  come back next week to hear Jorge speak about   his work here I believe next Wednesday as we heard  throughout numerous of the talks so far Ruskin was   the first to take notice of the new industrially  produced gray clouds hovering shroud like over   the English Lakes where he lived pollution was  a growing environmental concern in the late 19th   century and Ruskin critiqued it spritz spread  as he watched hundreds of brick chimneys erupt   with their billowing coal fire smoke blurring the  landscape and the luxuriously fine as he called   it weather that he recalled from his childhood  though horrified by the effects of industrial   soot in his own day Ruskin was not in principle  opposed to the accretion of dirt and grime on   buildings instead he thought these signs of age  gave a structure character inscribing historic   value onto its surface and showing how a building  could gracefully absorb the passage of time into   its very fabric the natural weathering of a  building was seen by Ruskin as a sign of its   cohesion its oneness with nature stones he noted  were nothing more than crystallized dust and so   dust itself wasn't intrinsic to a building's  historical worth discarding the layers of dust   accrued over time made the stones unnatural  like Ruskin before him or Tara pious believes   that the interaction between buildings and the  air and all the pollutants that the air contains   including soot dust acids and chemicals is part  of a natural relationship between architecture and   the environment pollution he says is one of our  most important products and the best records of   airborne pollution are found deposited as layers  on the surfaces of old buildings using liquid   latex as a form of cleaning technology or terra  pious traps microscopic to microscopic deposits   of history and sheets of translucent rubber once  removed from the building's facade and displayed   these sheets function as memories and reverse  exposing to light decades of accumulated dust   they also preserve the buildings by removing  the harmful corrosive properties of pollutants   pollutants and properties that were unknown to  Ruskin since 2008 or Tara pious has developed   works that respond to and document the world's  pollution in this way his series the ethics of   dust titled after Ruskin zone 1866 manual of  moral instruction for girls titled the ethics of   the dust offers a way to think about preserving  structures while at the same time retaining the   layers of dust coating their facades Terra pious  has captured the dust from seven different sites   in his series 3 of these are notable because  of their association with Ruskin they include   the doshas Palace in Venice the brick chimney  inside the plaster cast of Trajan's column at   the Victoria and Albert Museum and the east wall  of the medieval Westminster Hall and the last   to both being in London the massive piece from  Westminster Hall has since been cut and reframed   as individual light boxes and we are delighted to  show a portion of this light box in the opening   day of the exhibition as well as the study for the  interior of trations column in the final Bay and   I'll spend the remainder of my time talking about  this work in particular while Ruskin saw the rise   of modern industry as a threat to the environment  and to society most welcomed industrial capitalism   the merging of art in industry is perhaps  most exemplified by the project of the South   Kensington museum the Victoria and Albert Museum  as it is now known aimed to transform industrial   production and British culture by making the very  finest objects of the Industrial Arts available to   a very wide audience sculpture furniture ceramics  and textiles were acquired in great numbers and in   the large architectural galleries an encyclopedic  collection of plaster casts was assembled of which   the grandest was trations column the original 117  foot column stood at the center of Trajan's forum   in Rome to commemorate the Emperor's victory  in the jaqen Wars it rests atop a pedestal   that once contained the Emperor's mortal ashes  by the time Napoleon the third invaded Italy in   1859 and commissioned a plaster cast the poly the  columns polychrome finish had long since vanished   and its stone was vulnerable to pollution  and decay today the plaster casts are better   preserved than the original for being housed in  controlled museum environments the arrival of   the cast of trations column at the VA in 1864  presented significant installation challenges   the solution was to build a brick chimney as an  armature identical to those chimneys belching   smoke throughout northern Britain a characteristic  Victorian fusion of industry and culture in 2015   the VNA commissioned ortero Pius to make a latex  cast of the chimneys interior to be exhibited   alongside the plaster cast of trations column in  the cast courts the installation exposed to view   more than a century of dust this latex impression  tells the story of London's industrial pollution   in its very fiber a story that had remained hidden  beneath the plaster version of Trajan's column   itself a cast of a vast monument to perpetuate  the fame of an emperor after he had turned   dust it's in true Rus kinian fashion ortero pious  questions the moral value of preserving a monument   and plaster when the very thing supporting an  industrial chimney has caused the decay of the   original object Ruskin's critique of industrial  capitalism and its destructive effects on both the   environment and society had limited impact in his  own day today however and as this exhibition shows   those views may be considered the cornerstone  of Ruskin's lasting project a prophetic analysis   of the ills that have troubled industrial society  and that have ushered in a new geological age the   Anthropocene as the work of otero pious reveals  Ruskin's ideas are of startling relevance for   our own contemporary moment Ruskin's voice  cried out a harsh warning in his times and   our own repent and reform or else our world will  be entirely consumed ashes to ashes dust to dust and I think you can see why it's been fun  to work with these wonderful people in the   seminars over the last three or four years  we've got a few moments for questions I think   a discussion bearing in mind that John Ruskin's  father was a sherry importer and that the thing   you will be doing after that is drinking at a  reception upstairs we will keep it short but   let us okay I was particularly interested by the  passing mention of Ruskin's involvement with st.   George's guild who aim it was called as well  as his philanthropic efforts in Sheffield the   museum that he created and I guess there were  lectures for working people but I'm wondering   whether this the current of socialism we perceive  in maybe his journal entries or his ecological   concerns ever manifested itself in a in a more  pragmatic political theory as a complement to   his aesthetic views I mean I think of I think  of another Englishman who was to turn an order   in socialist and a feminist in fact later in  his life John Stuart Mill who was a similar   proponent of individuality and who advocated for  experiments and living to that might challenge   what he called the stagnant pool of the status  quo and that was in direct response to a kind of   mechanistic industrial age so I'm wondering  if we see that a strong discourse in Ruskin   a positive socialist critique who should we  ask Judith well to speak to the first half of   your question which is is there a pregnant if I  understood correctly if is there a pragmatic sort   of answer that Ruskin gives to these questions  that he's noticing in environment and eco ecology   was that part of your question yes and no he as  I mentioned very briefly he he buys cottages he   buys land to protect it and have people working  on it so there is these real-life actual things   that come out of Ruskin's ideas but they don't  necessarily work very well and so one of the   things that we wanted to pull out is that it's  it is these thinkers that come after Ruskin that   the Thai and more like Octavia Hill and William  Morris and bring his work in these ways into a   more sort of practical and pragmatic field as to  reskins views on on socialism heap self-described   as both a Tory of the old school and the reddest  of the red so he wasn't really a joiner in any   particular way he disliked John Stuart Mill to  speak to people who are talking about so he's   you know he's he's very much his own thinker and  not really a part of larger movements though very   influential on British socialism yeah and I think  it's fair to say he wasn't in any way interested   in reform of anything he wasn't actually a  practical politician he had no interest in   elections or the the liberal process of reform so  he said I am an illiberal right so he was both so   far to the right and so far to the left that he  just completely did not believe in the fact that   you could you know that you could take existing  institutions and tweak them in ways by reform   acts and chart ISM and this kind of thing which  was which obviously was what actually made the   difference to the lives of people in the United  Kingdom but on the other hand his visionary   inspiration led Gandhi for what to make profound  world historical changes so in himself he was   almost completely useless in a practical way  but the ideas that he unleashed which is what   we've tried to try to demonstrate in the show  had a kind of future which he himself was would   probably have been extremely uncomfortable with so  you know the way Ruskin Ruskin's ideas are bigger   than Ruskin himself in some way I think that  might be a any more thoughts or questions yeah so I've read that Modern Painters was catalyzed  in part by reskins displeasure that Turner's   slaveship had been passed over for an award in  favor of something a little bit um frothy er and   that this passion for the painting in part came  from his friendship with an abolitionist and I'm   wondering if there is anything that you all came  across in your research about his ideas about   race or human slavery that perhaps could help to  contextualize this that I've heard I wish that   were true I don't think Sophie you should speak  to this because you've done most work on this   this is a dark mark in the Ruskin scholarship  and and indeed in Ruskin's own writing while he   shortly after he published unto this last his  next meal which is what got Gandhi took up his   next publication is manera Polaris and that was  published serially in the early 1860s in London   and in it he has his most public declaration in  support of the Confederacy and the American South   during the Civil War and ultimately Ruskin is  on the wrong side of history during this moment   and that is what causes his breach with many of  his American followers and indeed his greatest   American supporter Charles Eliot Norton who  is the first professor of history of art in   this country at Harvard University and this sort  of support of many British intellectuals of not   specifically the institution of slavery but the  existing social structures that upheld slavery   in the United States leads to breaches between  figures like Carlisle and Emerson and Norton   and men who are indeed rabid abolitionists in the  United States there's no documented relationship   between Ruskin and abolitionists in fact the  slave ship was very controversial painting in   his collection he writes eloquently about it in  Modern Painters and but is happy to let it go   in the early 1870s to an American abolitionist  and it comes to the United States in the summer   of 1872 to New York and goes on view at the  Metropolitan Museum of Art where it is hailed   as the great abolition abolitionist picture of  the day and rescuing it writes that really it's   for an American audience and that it's deserve  at home is the United States so he does come   around but he really does believe in the idea  of hierarchy and slavery falls into that for him one more question and then da  McSherry all round yes at the back thank you so much this is so great um I guess  I'm interested in your personal reflections on   the course that you took and particular I don't  know particularly lies a shion's you came to   about Ruskin or your interest in Ruskin during  the course and then working on the exhibit that   you know like being a student and then being  a curator like were there particular work was   there an evolution in your own thinking about  Ruskin and how did these two different sort of   roles that you played change your relationship  to Raskin well I I wasn't originally in the the   seminar that Tim taught that that culminated in  the travel seminar but I did get to go to Amma   travel seminar and then I subsequently did with  Ashley Gabi a directed reading on Ruskin where   we sort of skipped the the sort of Ruskin that  we tend to read and went to the sort of b-side   reskins which was was you know a scary place to  be sometimes but also a really interesting place   to be and I think doing the exhibition allowed us  to sort of delve into these lesser-known Ruskin's   not necessarily we don't really focus on his  relationship with the pre-raphaelites too much   we don't have too much about the Whistler  trial which is the sort of key moments that   everyone learns if you learn about Ruskin in a  survey art history course you're learning that   he is anti-modernist and is on the wrong side  of history and it's much less the various way   but it's still on the wrong side of history then  he's you know the the sort of someone that's held   up as the stodgy Victorian and I think that we  in the exhibition come coming from misdirected   reading as well we've really tried to focus on  not those main moments of Ruskin that we all   hear about that the things that are sort of much  more significant and do touch on art but touch on   so much more and so I think this exhibition is  really sort of a reflection of that really deep   dive that I got to do sorry oh I suppose for me  it's been maybe more about the world being very   different than it was three years ago when we  began studying Ruskin studying studying Ruskin   I think you know in a post Trump moment has been  very interesting for me I think in a time where   I spent a lot of moments wondering if art or art  history could matter Ruskin was very meaningful   for me in terms of thinking about how you could  write art history that would touch on broader   issues or or how you could have a larger legacy  so I think that's been a big part of my changing   understanding of his work and yeah I would just  say I'd like to remind you as Victoria mentioned   there are nine million words that reskin Rhodes  it has taken three years and three of us really   to triangulate an understanding of Ruskin that  to find him anew out of all the preconceptions   that we have about him and an important part of  that was able to being able to dive deep into   collections and we've just shown you a small  amount of some of the really amazing stuff   that is in this university and that we didn't  know existed and it's sometimes we don't know   if anyone really knew that this stuff was here  and Victoria's wonderful essay and the catalog   really picks at the books and being able  to look at those and leap through them to   go to the letters to see upstairs we have Desiree  from the floor of San Marco that Ruskin was given   as part of his speaking against the destructive  preservation that was going on in Venice in the   eighteen in the 19th century so all of this each  object allowed a rediscovery of parts of reskins   writing and career that really without objects you  wouldn't have made - yeah it has been a revelation   well I think on that note we should thank our  curators and speakers and head for a beverage

Channel: YaleBritishArt

Views: 1,746

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Yale Center for British Art, Yale, Yale University, John Ruskin, bicentenary, Tim Barringer, Art history, Exhibition

Id: IgOSYOq6Kl8

Length: 82min 27sec (4947 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 19 2019