As we did last year, we will spend the next twelve months studying and reflecting on a single Ruskin work, this time, Modern Painters Vol. V (Volume 7 in the Library Edition). Modern Painters was written over the period of 17 years (1843-1860) reflecting the evolution of Ruskin's thinking about aesthetics in the broadest sense. (Volume four, for example, focuses on the topography of mountains and the fifth on botanical forms.) Volume V comes not only as a summation of Ruskin's epic defense of Turner but the harbinger of his shift from art criticism to economics and social reform that will find its clearest expression in the four essays of Unto this Last (1860).
We will examine Volume VII of the Library Edition (PDF pagination in parentheses): Preface, pp 3-11 (pp 2372-2379) this session.
Please find the link to the Library Edition of Volumes III-VII below:
https://the-ruskin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/3-7ModernPainters.pdf