Landscapes after Ruskin: Redefining the Sublime

John Ruskin was an influential English art critic and social thinker of the Victorian era, who famously argued that the principal concern of the artist is “truth to nature.” For Ruskin, this truth entailed more than merely adept technical representation, but rather, should depict the natural world as mankind experiences it, with all the sensations of both beauty and terror it elicits. Today, in a world overwhelmed by industrial development and environmental uncertainty, contemporary artists...