Book dossier

Lectures on art delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870

by John Ruskin

Reflecting Ruskin's belief that art is not an isolated pursuit, but one intimately connected with all aspects of human life, Lectures on Art explores the relation of art to religion, morality, and practicality as well as the significance of line, light, and color. Presented at Oxford, in 1870, Ruskin's lectures were so popular that they had to be moved to a larger hall to accommodate the hundreds who flocked to them. A pioneer environmentalist, an important influence on Oscar Wilde and Marcel Proust, and a passionate and wide-ranging thinker, Ruskin's ideas continue to be of vital interest to art, literature, and cultural studies. This edition includes a new introduction by Bill Beckley, a biography of Ruskin, and is the first to reproduce many of the artworks mentioned by Ruskin in the lectures.