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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 18h

🖤 #OTD in 1892, Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson died aged 83. Ruskin greatly admired Tennyson's work. In 1855 he praised The Charge of the Light Brigade & argued that the line "Someone had blundered" should remain in the poem. Tennyson later restored it. 📷Tennyson with family #Poetry

Black and white Victorian family photograph showing Alfred Lord Tennyson with his wife Emily and their sons Hallam and Lionel. The group are walking together along a garden path. Tennyson is dressed in a dark frock coat, while Emily wears a full-length dress and bonnet. One child stands close to the camera and the other slightly behind the adults. Trees, shrubs and the windows of a house form the backdrop, creating a peaceful garden scene from 19th century family life.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

🇨🇭🎨 A View of Geneva, Switzerland In 1854, #Ruskin sketched this corner of Geneva with just a few washes of colour and a remarkable eye for architectural detail. During that trip he also visited Interlaken, Thun, Lucerne, Chamonix, Lausanne & Fribourg. #Watercolour #ArtHistory

Watercolour, pencil and ink drawing by John Ruskin showing a quiet urban view in Geneva, Switzerland. A group of closely packed historic buildings occupies the centre of the composition, featuring pale stone walls, pitched roofs and several small towers and chimneys. The architecture is rendered with fine pen lines and soft washes of cream, beige and grey, while touches of blue surround the upper buildings, suggesting distant landscape or sky. The foreground is lightly sketched with minimal detail, drawing attention to the clustered structures. Ruskin's precise observation of architectural forms contrasts with the atmospheric, unfinished edges of the scene. Signed and dated "Geneva/JR.1854" at lower right. Medium: pencil, pen and black ink with watercolour, heightened with white. Dimensions: 16.5 × 22.9 cm.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

🏛️🌿 Architecture achieves its greatest glory when softened & enriched by nature. Ruskin’s philosophy perfectly captured at Kew Palace, where the strict lines of 17th cent. brick harmonise beautifully with the wild, reaching red rosehips of autumn. #Ruskin #Aesthetics

A vibrant red, three-story historic building with distinctive Dutch-style gables—Kew Palace—is seen in the background under a dramatic, cloudy sky. In the sharp foreground, a wild, tangled green bush heavily laden with clusters of bright red rosehips frames the building, beautifully matching its brick color and softening the architecture.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

💚 Autumn crocuses at Kew Gardens. Look closely at their delicate veins, repeated petals, each flower a variation on the same form. Nature rewards attention. Beauty begins with learning to see. #Ruskin

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Dr Anna Clark @drannaclark.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

William Morris, Arts & Crafts designer, translator of Icelandic sagas, founder of Kelmscott press, died #OTD 1896. Kelmscott Chaucer 1896, Stanford University | Snakeshead printed textile 1877, Victoria & Albert Museum | Portrait by George Frederick Watts 1870, NationalPortrait Gallery London

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Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

My October newsletter is up and free to read for the next fortnight. I’m thinking about the radical act of paying attention to what you value (and banging on about John Ruskin a wee bit as usual…). Lots of book recommendations too (not all Ruskin). victoriamackenzie.substack.com/p/if-you-can...

victoriamackenzie.substack.com

If you can paint one leaf, you can paint the world

Things I'm writing, things I'm reading, things I'm teaching...

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

🎭 From #Turner & #Ruskin to Cleveland, illness, family, ambition, love, & the frightening business of letting somebody help. 'Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin' made its debut in August. Thanks to everyone who got on the train with us. The journey continues. #TrainToCleveland

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

📚 📙Our Reading Group is back!📙 Join us as we recommence our shared reading of Modern Painters, Volume 3. Online, Monday 12 October, 6:30-7:30pm BST(UK) Whether you're a longtime Ruskin enthusiast or new to his work, all are welcome. DM us for details. #Ruskin #ReadingGroup #ModernPainters

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

🎨 Alpine Peaks: Jungfrau and Others John Ruskin, 1846, watercolour on paper. Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery / Bridgeman Images. #Ruskin was greatly impressed by the Jungfrau. He described it as "the most beautiful mountain in the world" (Praeterita, vol. III, §34).

John Ruskin's Alpine Peaks: Jungfrau and Others (1846), a watercolour and pencil study sheet of Swiss Alpine mountains. The composition consists of several separate studies of snow-covered peaks and ridges arranged across the page. Handwritten labels identify mountains including the Jungfrau, Eiger, Finsteraarhorn, Schreckhorn, Wetterhorn, Aarhorn and Breithorn. A dark, rocky massif occupies the centre, while sharper, snow-clad summits appear to the right and lower sections. Executed in pale blue-grey washes with delicate pencil outlines, the sheet combines topographical accuracy, geological observation and atmospheric effects characteristic of Ruskin's Alpine studies.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

⛪️ #Ruskin on Amiens Cathedral's Vierge Dorée: "Everybody must like the pretty French Madonna... with her head a little aside, and her nimbus switched a little aside too, like a becoming bonnet." He immediately adds: "A Madonna in decadence she is..." (The Bible of Amiens, 1884)

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Robin Cooper @robincooper1.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Some of the exhibits currently on display at Brantwood as part of ‘Ruskin’s Minerals’ #ruskinsociety Glass cases and spotlights make photography a bit tricky 😊

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

🎭 We were deeply moved by the voices in 'Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin'. Dan Callaway & Joey Nicoletti sing with such warmth and intimacy that the music feels less like an interruption than another way the two men learn to listen to one another. #TrainToCleveland #Ruskin

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

🌿🍃 "Go to Nature," Ruskin advised. In this fleeting meeting of leaf, light and shadow, one cannot help but notice how the simplest forms reward the closest attention. #Ruskin #Nature

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

💚 . . . most beautiful and delicate in its sponge-like structure of interior . . . Ruskin’s response to a common fungus in 1843. A characteristic instance of his insistence on looking closely at even the smallest forms of nature.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

🎨 Ruskin’s Sketch by a Clerk of the Works (1860) in Modern Painters V explores the changing curves of branches, clouds & rocks. More than a century before Benoît Mandelbrot developed fractal geometry, #Ruskin was already attentive to the self-similar structures of natural form. #fractalgeometry

$John Ruskin’s Sketch by a Clerk of the Works (1860), an ink drawing published in Modern Painters, Vol. V. The plate diagrams the branching structure of a tree, showing how the trunk divides into branches and smaller offshoots through repeated changes of curvature. Ruskin used the image to explain compositional laws he believed could be observed across natural forms, including trees, clouds and rocks. The drawing anticipates ideas later associated with fractal geometry, in which similar structures recur at different scales. Ruskin’s study reflects his attempt to connect close observation of nature with broader principles of form, growth and design. The Ruskin, Lancaster University.$

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

🚨🚨🚨 Call for Papers: Material, Metaphor and Modernity: Ruskin and Architecture Ghent, 3–5 March 2027 Papers invited on Ruskin, architecture, visual arts, modernism & more. Accommodation + travel support for speakers. Abstracts due 16.10.2026. Details the-ruskin.co.uk/events/mater...

John Ruskin, Segment Of Arch With Fresco Surround (n.d., accession no. 1996P0484). Watercolour study of a curved stone arch segment decorated with a painted fresco border. The arch is shown in close detail, with weathered stone blocks rendered in muted beige, grey and brown tones. Traces of ornamental painted patterns in red, green and ochre surround the arch, highlighting the architectural decoration. The composition focuses on the texture, structure and surviving colour of the historic architectural fragment against a plain background. © The Ruskin, Lancaster University.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

🎭 “The grownups were supposed to build the sturdy walls, but they couldn’t, so I barricaded myself between library shelves.” For Michael, art and knowledge became ways of making an unpredictable world hold still. Then John Ruskin gets on the train... #TrainToCleveland #Turner

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

⛅🔵🎨 After Whistler at Tate Britain, a Ruskinian exercise in attention from Vauxhall Bridge. Downstream towards Westminster, an arrangement in blue; upstream towards Nine Elms, under the storm-cloud. 🌩️ Same river, same moment, two Londons. #Ruskin #Whistler #London

View downstream from Vauxhall Bridge towards Westminster. The Thames fills the foreground beneath a vivid blue sky broken by large white and grey clouds. The London Eye is visible in the distance, with buildings lining both banks and boats on the river.

View upstream from Vauxhall Bridge towards Nine Elms. Tall modern towers rise beneath heavy, dark grey storm clouds, with cranes and apartment blocks below. A small aeroplane crosses the top-left of the sky, adding to the dramatic, unsettled atmosphere.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

🎨 Off to see Whistler at Tate Britain. Among the highlights is The Falling Rocket, the much-debated painting criticised by Ruskin and later at the heart of the Whistler v Ruskin libel trial. #Whistler #Ruskin #Tate

James McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket. A largely abstract nighttime scene dominated by deep greens, blues, and black tones. Golden flecks and streaks of paint descend through a smoky sky, suggesting fireworks bursting and falling over water. Near the center, a pale cloud of smoke glows softly against the dark background. The lower portion of the painting shows muted reflections on the water and a narrow strip of shoreline, where a few tiny, indistinct figures appear as silhouettes. The composition emphasizes atmosphere rather than detail, with loose brushwork, haze, and scattered points of light creating an impression of a fleeting fireworks display at night. The image has a subdued, dreamlike quality, with darkness enveloping most forms and only the sparks providing contrast.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

📕 #Ruskin didn’t just write about political economy. He tried to publish by it. With Fors Clavigera, he bypassed conventional bookselling, rejected trade discounts and fixed the selling price. The book itself became an experiment in value, labour & fair exchange. #ForsClavigera

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

🎭 Dan Callaway wondered how musical theatre might become more intimate & immediate. In 'Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin', 2 performers, piano, guitar, Wordsworth & Turner meet in a tiny space. No spectacle required. The argument is close enough to touch. #TrainToCleveland

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

⚠️For your diary 🌊 What can London, Shanghai, Nepal & coastal communities teach us about our future? Join the Guild of St George for an online talk with author & journalist Jeevan Vasagar on The Surge - flooding, climate change & how we adapt. 15 Sept, 6.30pm UK us.list-manage.com/14tV8rlvFd5?...

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Sarah Bodman @sarahbodman.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Our MA Print & PhD alum Dr Lisa Sheppy has a one-person exhibition - and residency - developed from her doctoral research here, at the Museum of Royal Worcester 'Lisa Sheppy: Ornament Unbound: Tissue Transferware Reframed' 10 Sept 2026 – 21 Feb 2027. www.museumofroyalworcester.org/whats-on/orn...

museumofroyalworcester.org

Ornament Unbound: Tissue Transferware Reframed | Museum of Royal Worcester

Re-discover the art and design of Worcester Porcelain through the lens of contemporary print and ceramic artist Lisa Sheppy. Working from the perspective of an 18th Century engraver, Lisa brings the h...

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Spotting red squirrels always feels like a real privilege these days. 🐿️🍂

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

📚 In 1864, Ruskin delivered "Of Kings' Treasuries" at Rusholme Public Hall and Library in aid of the Rusholme Institute and Birch School Library. It became one of Victorian Britain's most influential defences of public libraries and access to wider culture. #Ruskin #Libraries

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

🎭 “When you were little, you figured out nobody was coming. And you were right... But now somebody is here.” Michael learned very young how to survive by needing nobody. The harder lesson is discovering what to do when somebody stays. #TrainToCleveland #NewPlay #Theatre #Ruskin

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

🌿🍃 Ruskin believed that nothing in nature stands wholly alone. Growth is always a matter of relation, response and sympathy. Uta Feinstein's intertwined trees seem to illustrate the point perfectly. #Ruskin #Nature #Trees

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

📕 In Fors Clavigera, #Ruskin challenges an economics that tells us what something sells for, but not what it's truly worth. Roland Reuß @textkritik applies this distinction between price & value to books - how they're priced, sold, produced & valued as cultural objects. #Books

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

🎭 Before the performance, Dan Callaway told Ruskin Society members how the play began. He discovered Turner through an art-history teacher. Later, at Boston’s MFA, he recognised a Turner across the gallery. First he saw the sunset. Then he walked closer... #TrainToCleveland

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

🎁Quite a gift. 8 June 1863 John James Ruskin, John Ruskin’s father, writes to Michael Faraday, sending him a dozen bottles of sherry “drunk at the Tables of Napoleon” and a small bottle of Paxarete, said to be the last of Ferdinand IV’s dessert wine. ...Victorian networks were closely intertwined

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

📕 Roland Reuß called his book on the value and pricing of books simply Fors, a direct homage to Ruskin's Fors Clavigera. For Ruskin, fors united 3 powers: Force - good work Fortitude - endurance Fortune - fate and what we make of it #JohnRuskin #ForsClavigera

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

🎭 MICHAEL: “Reading your essays makes me want to rip out my nose hairs.” RUSKIN: “And the reason for that?” MICHAEL: “It’s too much. Relax. Be clear. You use fourteen words when four will do!” John Ruskin meets a PhD student who has had quite enough. #TrainToCleveland #Ruskin

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

🇮🇹 #Ruskin visited #Bologna during his first major Italian tour. He produced several drawings and watercolours of the city, inc. View of Bologna (c. 1845-46, Tate). His sketches of Bologna's streets and architecture reveal the eye of an artist and architectural historian closely studying the city.

John Ruskin, View of Bologna (c. 1845-46, Tate). A sepia-toned watercolour and ink landscape seen from a wooded hillside overlooking Bologna. Tall tree trunks dominate the foreground, their branches and delicate leaves forming a natural frame across the top of the composition. Dense ferns, shrubs and undergrowth cover the sloping ground, while a winding path disappears among the trees on the right.

Beyond the woodland, the city of Bologna stretches across the middle distance in soft, atmospheric washes. The skyline is marked by towers, church domes and medieval buildings, with the tall, slender Asinelli Tower rising prominently near the centre. Architectural details are lightly sketched and partially veiled by haze, creating a sense of distance and depth.

The contrast between the carefully observed vegetation in the foreground and the faint cityscape beyond draws the eye through the scene. Muted brown and grey tones, loose brushwork and subtle shading give the view a quiet, contemplative atmosphere, emphasizing Bologna as glimpsed through the surrounding countryside rather than presented as a formal city panorama.

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Ed Henderson @dredhenderson.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

St Bega’s Church on a misty morning near Bassenthwaite Lake in Cumbria today.

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Richard Morris @ahistoryinart.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Thomas Rooke first visited Auxerre, France in 1886, having been sent by John Ruskin to record mediaeval carving and architecture of the city's cathedral. Ruskin later wrote: 'Not since seeing Turner's work has anything given me so much pleasure.'

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

🎨 J.M.W. Turner held a special place in the Ruskin household. John Ruskin and his father, John James Ruskin, began collecting his work in 1839, referring to their first purchase as "our first Turner". Across his lifetime, #Ruskin is estimated to have owned more than 300 works by #Turner.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

🎭 “Why are we even staring at paintings if we’re not letting them hit us in the gut?” At the centre of 'Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin' is Turner’s The Slave Ship - tremendous beauty and tremendous cruelty occupying the same canvas. #TrainToCleveland #JMWTurner #Ruskin

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

📢 Opportunity: Curator of the Ruskin Collection, Sheffield Sheffield Museums Trust is recruiting a Curator of the Ruskin Collection to champion, interpret and care for this remarkable collection on behalf of the Guild of St George. Closes 31 August 2026. Good luck to all applicants!

networxrecruitment.com

Curator of the Ruskin Collection - Sheffield

About the Role The Ruskin Collection was originally created to inspire the metalworkers and craftspeople of Sheffield and reflects John Ruskin’s belief in the positive impact of art and nature. We’re...

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

📕 What is a book worth and is that the same as what it costs? In Fors: The Price of the Book and Its Value, Roland Reuß @textkritik takes an essay by John Ruskin as his starting point to reflect on the value of books and fixed book pricing. A very Ruskinian question. #Ruskin

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

⛰️🌿 Stunning capture. The path leading up the ridge makes one feel as though they're already on the walk. Makes us wonder if Cat Bells is still quite this green after the heat we've had this year. #RuskinLand

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

🎭 A burnt-out PhD student meets Ruskin on a train to Cleveland. But 'Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin' becomes a play about something harder: What happens when the person who can carry everything finally can’t? A new play by Dan Callaway & Joey Nicoletti #TrainToCleveland

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

📰 News from the Ruskin Society. Samuel (Sam) Webb has been appointed as our new Secretary. A Cambridge PhD researcher whose work explores Victorian literary polemic, Sam brings enthusiasm, expertise & fresh energy to the role. Congratulations too on his successful PhD viva! 🎉📚

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

🎨 William Dyce’s Titian Preparing to Make His First Essay in Colouring. Titian, flowers in hand, discovering colour in nature. #Ruskin called it the only work at the 1857 Academy “up to the high-water mark of Pre-Raphaelitism”. He praised its patience, expression & minute detail.

William Dyce’s painting shows the young Titian seated in a wooded garden, gazing thoughtfully at a statue of the Virgin and Child. Flowers, drawing materials and a basket lie around him, while the trees, bark, grass and foliage are rendered in meticulous detail.

Full reference: William Dyce, RA, Titian Preparing to Make His First Essay in Colouring, 1856–57. Oil on canvas, 100.5 × 79 cm. Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, accession no. ABDAG003211. Image courtesy of Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums via Art UK, licensed CC BY-NC.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

🎭 We so enjoyed Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin at the Circle & Star @ Camden Fringe that we're not quite ready to leave it behind. We'll be sharing moments from the play, lines that stayed with us & a little of how Dan Callaway & Joey Nicoletti brought it to life. #TrainToCleveland #Ruskin

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Lausanne Cathedral is a great monument of medieval Gothic architecture in a city Ruskin knew well. Its 19th century restoration by Viollet-le-Duc also places it within the wider debate about restoration and preservation that deeply concerned Ruskin. #JohnRuskin #GothicArchitecture #Switzerland

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Robin Cooper @robincooper1.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Some images taken from the top of Home Fell, Coniston, this morning. Lots of heather in bloom up there.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

💚 Fougères et ronces (Henry White, 1856; Ferns & brambles; albumen print) embodies the Victorian devotion to close study of the natural world. Its patient attention to humble vegetation recalls #Ruskin's insistence that truth to nature begins not with grand scenery but with careful observation.

Henry White (British, 1819-1903), Fougères et ronces (Ferns and brambles), 1856. Albumen print, 19.1 × 24.1 cm. The photograph presents a dense woodland bank almost entirely covered by overlapping fern fronds, brambles and tangled wild vegetation. Delicate, feathery ferns spread across the upper two-thirds of the composition, while thorny bramble stems and clusters of small leaves weave through the darker undergrowth below. A narrow strip of grass runs along the foreground edge. The close-cropped composition excludes sky, paths and human figures, concentrating attention on the intricate textures, patterns and tonal contrasts of the foliage. Collection particulière. © Droits réservés.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

🎭The Camden Fringe 2026 A fabulous Ruskin Society social last night watching Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin by Dan Callaway and Joey Nicoletti. Thought-provoking, movingly tender and beautifully performed. A well-deserved ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Well worth seeing.

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

🎭 Only one sleep until the Ruskin Society outing to see *Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin* at the CamdenFringe Festival. We are very much looking forward to an evening of theatre, conversation, sustenance and good cheer.🍹 And of course, #Ruskin!

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Ruskin Society @ruskinsociety.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

🏚️ This abandoned Isle of Lewis croft brings to mind Ruskin’s “Lamp of Memory”. Labour, habitation and loss made legible in weathered stone. #JohnRuskin #IsleOfLewis #OuterHebrides #Scotland #Architecture #Ruins

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