RUSKIN, JOHN, an English author; born in London, Feb. 8, 1819. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford; gained the Newdigate prize in 1839, and graduated in 1842. In 1867 he was appointed Rede lecturer at Cambridge, and in 1870-1872, 1876-1878, 1883-1885, he was Slade Pro fessor of Fine Arts at Oxford, where in 1871 he gave $25,000 for the endowment of a university teacher of drawing. In "Modern Painters" he advocated a com plete revolution in the received conven tions of art and art criticism. Ruskin was the first art critic to place criticism upon a scientific basis. In 1851 he ap peared as a defender of pre-Raphaelitism. About 1860 he began to write as a politi cal economist and social reformer; his chief works in this sphere being "Unto this Last" (1862) ; "Munera Pulveris" (1872) ; and "Fors Clavigera" (1871 1884), a periodical series of letters to the _ working men and laborers of Great Bri tain. In this connection he founded in 1871, "The Guild of St. George"; founded a linen industry at Keswick, and revived, in Langdale, hand-loom weaving. His chief works, apart from pamphlets and contributions to periodicals, are: "Modern Painters" (1843-1860) ; "Seven Lamps of Architecture"; "Poems" (1850) ; "King of the Golden River" (1851), a fairy leg end; "The Stones of Venice" (1851-1853) ; "Giotto and his Works at Padua" (1854) ; "Lectures on Architecture and Painting" (1854) ; "Notes on the Royal Academy" (1855-1859 and 1875) ; the letterpress ac companying "Turner's Harbors of Eng land" (1856) ; "Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House" (1857) ; "Catalogue of Turner's Sketches at the National Gallery" (1857) ; "Elements of Drawing" (1857) ; "Political Economy of Art" (1857), better known as "A Joy For ever"; "Sesame and Lilies" (1865) ; "Ethics of the Dust" (1866) ; "Crown of Wild Olive" (1866) ; "Lectures on Art" (1870) ; "Aratra Pentelici" (1872) ; "Love's Meinie" (1873); "Val d'Arno" (1874) ; "Proserpina" (1875) ; "Deuca lion" (1875) ; "Mornings in Florence" (1875) ; "Frondes Agrestes" (1875-1876) ; "Elements of English Prosody" (1880) ; "Fiction, Fair and Foul, in the 19th Cen tury" (1880-1881) ; "Our Fathers Have Told Us" (1881) ; "Lectures on the Art of England" (1883) ; "On the Pleasures of England" (1884); "Hortus Inclusus" (1887), a selection of letters; and "Prae terita," an autobiography (1885-1.889).
After 1885 he lived at Brantwood, on Coniston Lake, where he died Jan. 20, 1900.