John Ruskin

Timeless work by one of the greatest art critics of all time begins with bare fundamentals and offers brilliant philosophical advice from sketching to the laws of color and composition. 48 illustrations.

This 1866 collection of essays on "Work," "Traffic," and "War," begins with a preface condemning the human depletion of nature for what Ruskin saw as valueless gains. In this way, mining the ground for metals, water, and other resources parallels the work of the three lecture topics-all is done for the money. But what Ruskin wants to know is what the ultimate effect and product of their work is?

"To understand a profound thought is to have, at the moment one understands it, a profound thought oneself; and this demands some effort, a genuine descent to the heart of oneself . . . Only desire and love give us the strength to make this effort. The only books that we truly absorb are those we read with real appetite, after having worked hard to get them, so great had been our need of them." Reading was, for Marcel Proust, more than the pursuit...

A selection of writings by nineteenth-century artist and social critic John Ruskin, including the title work, a series of essays in which he offers an indictment of Victorian capitalism.