The Desire of My Eyes: The Life & Work of John Ruskin

by Wolfgang Kemp, Jan Van Heurck (Translator)

Overview

This "tour de force of analysis" (Joel Agee) examines the life and work of the prolific, visionary writer, painter and critic. Kemp finds in Ruskin's life -- which spanned the same years as Queen Victoria's and thus embodied the Victorian era itself -- a faithful mirror of the history and psychological evolution of his age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466810457
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	08/01/1992
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	528
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Wolfgang Kemp is a cultural historian at the University of Marburg, Germany. He has taught and lectured widely in the United States.

Wolfgang Kemp is a cultural historian at the University of Marburg, Germany.  He has taught and lectured widely in the United States.

Editorial Reviews

Examining the English critic alongside Byron, Carlyle, Karl Kraus and others of his time, and considering views of him given by Shaw and Proust, the author, a German art historian, contends that Ruskin (1819-1900) was a reflection of Victorian history and pathology. Kemp regards him as not only a major reformer, educator and ecologist, but also as a great realistic draftsman whose drawings reveal developing emotional instability. Increasingly, Ruskin's attention moved from art to society as he came to criticize capitalism, religion, technology, the destruction of nature--and himself. First sightseer, then see-er, finally seer and mythmaker, Ruskin in his old age became industry as well as institution: there were Ruskin ceramics and linens, even Ruskin cigars. This distinguished work, gracefully translated, is illustrated with portraits of the critic and drawings by him. (Aug. )

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Artist, writer, and world traveler, Ruskin moved vigorously through Victorian times with a unique view of the way things were and a strong conviction regarding the way they should be. His ideas, whether aesthetic, moral, or political, influenced lay audiences as well as his artistic and intellectual peers. The portraits that open each chapter of this book provide a literal as well as literary depiction of this man, too often seen as either saint or madman. But though the renewed interest in Ruskin may allow for a more balanced view of the man and his ideas, this somewhat awkward translation of a 1983 introduction for German audiences is too superficial to provide such a portrait.--Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York

Library Journal

This "tour de force of analysis" examines the life and work of the prolific, visionary writer, painter and critic. Kemp finds in Ruskin's life — which spanned the same years as Queen Victoria's and thus embodied the Victorian era itself — a faithful mirror of the history and psychological evolution of his age” —Joel Agee

From the Publisher