He was the master of English prose writing and a leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, a prominent social thinker, and philanthropist.
4. RUSKIN STYLE:-
He is certainly one of the greatest masters of English prose style.
Language is flexible instrument in his hand. In the earlier writings of Ruskin, We find
an ornamental, gorgeous prose.
Picturesque in his literary expression.
He is rich in the power of illustration.
5. Famous books by
JOHN RUSKIN
Modern Painters (1843-1846)
The king of the Golden River (1851).
The Stones of Venice (1851).
Giotto and his Works in Padua (1853-
1854).
The Seven Lamps of Architecture
(1855).
6. Work and Play:-
Definition of Work:
Work is a thing done because it is ought to be done and with a determinated end.
Definition of Play:
Play is an exertion of body or mind , made to please ourselves and with no
determinated end.
7. Introduction of essay ( WorK):-
Delivered his lecture before working class.
Men’s institute,Camber Well.
Socio-economic criticism.
Harsh realities and destruction of industrial revolution.
Criticizes upper class.
Class distinction.
Idle rich and idle poor.
Busy poor and busy rich.
Natural enemies.
Upper class as corrupt.
Lower class as lazy class.
These classes only look for the faults of other class.
8. Game of making money:-
Criticizes some famous plays of London.
Cricket and snooker as Game of making money.
London is a city of play, very hard and unpleasant play.
Illegal and unfair ways of making money by rich people.
Injustice with working class by upper class.
9. Ladies game of dressing:-
Dress yourselves nicely, and dress everybody else nicely.
Lead the fashions for the poor first; make them look well, and you yourselves will look, in
ways of which you have now no conception, all the better.
10. The game of War:-
Pleasant in imagination
All nations have agreed that it is good to be well dressed at this play
Then the bats and balls are very costly.
Costly, unfair, unpleasant in reality.
11. Hunting and Shooting:-
Symbolism of status at that time.
Three disadvantages of this game
Costly,useless,deadly
13. War:-
It is a practical fact that peace and vices of civil life flourish together.
All nations realized the truth that war nourishes them whereas peace wastes and debilitates
them.
But Ruskin point of war is totally different. He refers to creative or ‘noble war’ which
disciplines love and ambition and kills evil.
As the war of barbarians ,or the Scotch border feuds ,or the Napoleonic war, build nothing
except tombs.
14. Division of noble war
Ruskin divides this ‘noble war’ into three kinds :
1. War for Exercise or Play
2. War of Dominion
3. War for Defense
15. War for Exercise or Play:-
Ruskin condemns war for the sake of war.
In the past war used to be more an exercise than any thing else among the classes who
caused and proclaimed it.
Ruskin defines;
“Fighting is implanted in human nature and hence for all healthy men, fair fight is the
best play and that a tournament was a better game than a steeple-chase.”
16. Continue..
Why Ruskin support fighting?
There are three reasons for this.
First, the great justification of this game is that when well played, it determines,
who is the best man, who is the most fearless, the swiftest of eye and hand.
The other two reasons for this mode of decision are the lessening of material
destructiveness or cost and the physical distress of war.
17. War of Dominion:-(sovereignty or control.)
(War for extending the territory)
This is the commonest type of war.
The real motive for such wars is not unholy because human nature is essentially noble. But when this nobility is
forgotten, man begins to commit follies and sins.
Ruskin says that the kings and princes are free to extend their domin-ion, but they should be gentlest and the
most generous of all nobles.
Then he says; It is wrong to suppose that nations become strong according to their numbers. They become
strong only if these numbers are one mind. But mere number is not sufficient.
18. War for Defense:-
The third kind of war that Ruskin calls a ‘noble deed’ is the war for defense.
Generally, most men joining the army consider themselves bound to duty.
These persons should act as sentimental beings, because it is on the whole,
the love of adventure,
love of fine dress,
love of the pride of fame
Therefore, for their honour, they should choose brave death in a red coat in
preference to brave life in a black coat.
19. Ruskin’s viewpoints
Ruskin feels that the soldiers, who have to fight at the orders of others, have
to labour under a form of slavery.
It is because the administrators( the persons who govern), are not always the
best men, and it is they who decide where the soldiers have to fight.
Therefore, he said that the guides and leaders of the soldiers need to be noble
and righteous people.
20. He said that the;
• Passive obedience is not the ideal of soldier ship
(A separation between civil and military duties)
• brave men fighting and cowards thinking and directing
So to ennoble their country, the soldiers should be industrious they should think and
feel as well as fight for their country.
