John Ruskin citations
John Ruskin
Date de naissance: 8. février 1819
Date de décès: 20. janvier 1900
Autres noms: Джон Рескин
John Ruskin, né le 8 février 1819 à Bloomsbury en Londres, mort le 20 janvier 1900 à Coniston est un écrivain, poète, peintre et critique d'art britannique.
Fils unique d'une riche famille, il fut éduqué à domicile, avec une insistance particulière sur l'art et la religion. Il poursuivit son éducation en dilettante, en tant qu'auditeur libre à Oxford. Malgré des problèmes de santé, il y obtint son MA en 1843. Surtout, il s'y lia d'amitié avec nombre d'intellectuels.
Il fut publié dès son adolescence. Grâce à la fortune de sa famille, il put consacrer sa vie à l'écriture. Il devint rapidement célèbre dans les années 1840 grâce à son travail de critique Modern Painters où il proposait une nouvelle façon d'appréhender l'art. Il écrivit ensuite The Seven Lamps of Architecture en 1849 et surtout The Stones of Venice en 1853. Il fit aussi passer ses idées par l'enseignement. Il participa à la création de l'University Museum, donna des cours de dessin au Working Men's College, un établissement de formation continue fondé par ses amis socialistes chrétiens. Il en donna aussi dans une école pour jeunes filles et par correspondance. En 1870, il devint le premier titulaire de la chaire Slade à Oxford.
Son mariage avec Effie Gray annulé pour non-consommation continue à alimenter de nos jours des légendes nombreuses et variées, des suppositions. Effie épousa très vite le peintre John Everett Millais, un membre du mouvement préraphaélite dont Ruskin fut le mécène et le soutien après s'être engagé pour Turner.
Citations John Ruskin
„The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.“
— John Ruskin, livre The Stones of Venice
Volume II, chapter V, section 30.
Source: The Stones of Venice (1853)
„What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.“
The Crown of Wild Olive, lecture IV: The Future of England, section 151 (1866).
„The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, — all in one.“
— John Ruskin, livre Modern Painters
Volume III, part IV, chapter XVI (1856).
Modern Painters (1843-1860)
„A book worth reading is worth owning.“
Variante: If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying.
„All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hours, and the books of all Time.“
— John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies
Source: Sesame and Lilies
„The entire vitality of art depends upon its being either full of truth, or full of use“
Lecture IV
Lectures on Art (1870)
Contexte: The entire vitality of art depends upon its being either full of truth, or full of use; and that, however pleasant, wonderful, or impressive it may be in itself, it must yet be of inferior kind, and tend to deeper inferiority, unless it has clearly one of these main objects, — either to state a true thing, or to adorn a serviceable one.
„When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work“
Sesame and Lilies.
Contexte: When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower;—when they are faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse to the body. But now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into the false business of money-making; and having no true emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with, not innocently, as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly.
„To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.“
— John Ruskin, livre The Stones of Venice
Source: The Stones of Venice
„But now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into the false business of money-making; and having no true emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with“
Sesame and Lilies.
Contexte: When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower;—when they are faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse to the body. But now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into the false business of money-making; and having no true emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with, not innocently, as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly.
„The living inhabitation of the world — the grazing and nesting in it, — the spiritual power of the air, the rocks, the waters, to be in the midst of it, and rejoice and wonder at it, and help it if I could, — happier if it needed no help of mine, — this was the essential love of Nature in me, this the root of all that I have usefully become, and the light of all that I have rightly learned.“
Praeterita, volume I, chapter IX (1885-1889).
Contexte: My entire delight was in observing without being myself noticed,— if I could have been invisible, all the better. I was absolutely interested in men and their ways, as I was interested in marmots and chamois, in tomtits and trout. If only they would stay still and let me look at them, and not get into their holes and up their heights! The living inhabitation of the world — the grazing and nesting in it, — the spiritual power of the air, the rocks, the waters, to be in the midst of it, and rejoice and wonder at it, and help it if I could, — happier if it needed no help of mine, — this was the essential love of Nature in me, this the root of all that I have usefully become, and the light of all that I have rightly learned.
