John Ruskin: 114 books

The decay of the city of Venice is, in many respects, like that of an outwearied and aged human frame; the cause of its decrepitude is indeed at the heart, but the outward appearances of it are first at the extremities. In the centre of the city there are still places where some evidence of vitality...

John Ruskin was a highly principled man who lived and died by his views on the evil of Capital and machinery. These lectures make interesting reading, unorthodox and brave, especially considering who he was addressing each time.

The following lectures were really given, in substance, at a girls' school (far in the country); which, in the course of various experiments on the possibility of introducing some better practice of drawing into the modern scheme of female education, I visited frequently enough to enable the children...

Culled from lectures delivered at Oxford from 1883-1885, this collection of Ruskin’s critiques of the overall condition of England’s artistic life, past and present, is divided into two sections. The “Art” lectures deal with three traditions of art:  the Realistic, the Mythic and the Classic....

In a unique 1869 take on Greek mythology, the influential Victorian-Edwardian sage considers the myth of the goddess Athena. Ruskin asks us to consider Athena—“in the heavens, the earth, and the heart”—as a vital force in the material world channeled by those leading virtuous lives and also as “the directress of the imagination and will.”

Published in 1872, this volume collects ten lectures that Ruskin gave at Oxford University on the subject of the relation of the natural sciences to art—including, “The Function in Art of the Faculty called by the Greeks s???a,” “The Relation of Wise Art to Wise Science,” and “Introduction to Elementary Exercises in Historic Art: The Heraldic Ordinaries.”

This second in a three-volume series on Venetian art and architecture focuses on the Byzantine and Gothic periods. Ruskin discusses the palaces belonging to each era, along with the “nature” of the Gothic and the beautiful islands of Murano and Torcello in the Byzantine period.

In the three volumes of The Stones of Venice (1851-1853) Ruskin championed the Gothic style of architecture. “Written for the Help of the Few Travellers Who Still Care for Her Monuments,” this 1877 volume, intended as a sequel, continues the influential critic’s love affair with one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

In this 1859 publication, Ruskin sets forth the fundamental rules of perspective in a short mathematical form. Written not for a select few, the book conveys complex information in a way that art students at many levels will understand. A classic that is still relevant today.

This 1867 volume contains twenty-five letters written by Ruskin to Mr. Thomas Dixon, a working cork-cutter of Sunderland, on the occasion of debates over Parliamentary reform in the area of workers' rights.

Published in 1859, this volume contains Ruskin's lectures on art and its application to decoration and manufacture, in which he seeks to bridge the gap between aesthetic theory and practical application in daily economic life. He also explores his theory that contented individuals create good art, while corrupt people’s art is inherently second-rate.

Subtitled “Being Simple Studies on Christian Art for English Travellers,” Ruskin uses this 1877 work to advise pilgrims to Italy on what works of art to see during a limited time. His casual stroll conducts readers through the gates and basilicas of the city to ponder the genius of Giotto, Ghirlandajo, Boticelli, and others.

Firenze nelle descrizioni degli intellettuali che più l'hanno amata / Florence described by the writers most fond of her. Nelle parole di / In the words of Andersen, Cooper, Dickens, Dumas, Eustace, Freud, Goncourt, Hazlitt, James, Le Corbusier, Mommsen, Morgan, Ruskin, Shelley, Stendhal, Trollope e Twain.