For more texts of enduring interest, visit the QuikScan Library at http://quikscan.org/library/index.html Welcome to this QuikScan edition of Unto This Last by John Ruskin Four essays on economics and social justice published in 1860 John Ruskin (1819-1900) was one of the most remarkable voices of Victorian England. Having achieved acclaim as an art critic, Ruskin changed directions and by writing Unto This Last angered England's mercantile classes by fiercely condemning their greed and the poverty he saw everywhere around him. He challenged the dehumanized economic thinking of his day and urged a new kind of economics based on social justice. Ruskin became an embattled champion of the working class. While gradually succumbing to despair and insanity, he proposed a wide range of progressive social reforms and founded a utopian community, St. George's Guild, to put those ideas into practice. Many of Ruskin's ideas have now gained wide acceptance. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and the British Socialist movement were deeply influenced by Ruskin. Because Ruskin condemned the pollution of air, water, and soil caused by uncontrolled industrialism, he is regarded as one of the very first environmentalists. Why a QuikScan edition? Ruskin is a brilliant writer with a very lively prose style. Even so, Unto This Last, while brief, challenges even well-educated and motivated readers. QuikScan is unique because it provides brief summaries throughout the book, making it much easier to understand and dramatically increasing retention. And, if a section of the book doesn't interest you, read just the summary and keep going. We hope to draw more people to this brilliant and important work and to provide a richer, more enjoyable reading experience. This title is also the first in the growing library of QuikScanned texts. In addition, we invite you to create your own QuikScan texts either for print, PDF, or web-based reading. Visit QuikScan.org. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS About John Ruskin About Unto This Last About this edition Ch. 1. The Roots of Honor Ch. 2. The Veins of Wealth Ch. 3. Qui Judicatis Terram Ch. 4. Ad Valorem Ch. 5. Ruskin's book preface Appendix A: References and further readings Appendix B: Gandhi's Paraphrase of Unto This Last iii Unto This Last About John Ruskin About John Ruskin SECTIONS 1. A quick look at John Ruskin’s life 2. Ruskin's Upbringing 3. The connection between aesthetics, spirituality, culture, and morality 4. The transition to social reformer 5. His disastrous marital and romantic life 6. His embattled years as a social reformer Unto This Last About John Ruskin TOC ↑A quick look at John Ruskin’s life About Ruskin Sec 1 Ruskin achieved early acclaim as an art critic but gave it up for an embattled life as a social reformer. Frustration with the lack of social reform, a disastrous love life, and other problems led to gradual insanity. He spent large sums of money funding projects, including a Utopian community. He was one of the most important and influential Victorians. ▲1 John Ruskin (1819-1900) achieved early acclaim as an art critic but gave it up for an embattled life as a social reformer. ▲2 In later life he experienced mental breakdowns and eventual insanity due to his frustration with the lack of social reform in England, a disastrous marital and romantic life, loss of his religious faith, a legal dispute with James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and over- work. ▲3 He inherited and later earned large sums of money but willingly spent most of it on his social goals, including funding museums, an art school, and a utopian community, St. George’s Guild. ▲4 He was one of the most interesting and most influential voices of the Victorian Age, and his ideas on social justice and environmentalism remain relevant today. He greatly influenced British political and social thought as well as Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Despite his ultra- conservative political outlook, he was a strong influence on the British socialist movement. TOC ↑Ruskin’s upbringing About Ruskin Sec 2 1. Ruskin’s father, a successful businessman, loved literature and art. His mother was intensely religious. 2. A very precocious child, Ruskin was accomplished in poetry, geology, and art—all before enrolling in Oxford. 3. He published the first volume of Modern Painters to defend E.M.W. Turner and became an acclaimed art critic. ▲1 Ruskin’s father was a successful wine merchant of Scottish ancestry with a strong interest in literature and art. His mother was an intensely religious English Evangelical Protestant and a strict, demanding parent. She taught her young son to read the King James Bible, from beginning to end and to memorize large portions of it. Ruskin’s thinking and writing strongly reflects this grounding in Christianity and Scripture. ▲2 Ruskin was an extremely precocious child. He enjoyed the best schooling and extensive travel with his father. By the time he enrolled in Oxford in 1836, he’d published poetry and several magazine articles on geology. He was also an accomplished representational artist from an early age, and his many drawings of natural scenes and buildings are exquisite. Ruskin’s interest in geology—this was his first career plan—contributed to his fine eye for detail. ▲3 In 1843 Ruskin, only 24 years old, published the first volume of Modern Painters, a defense of the painter E.M.W. Turner, whom Ruskin’s father collected and whom Ruskin knew personally. Turner was often attacked for not being true to nature. Ruskin argued, in highly expressive prose, 2 Unto This Last About John Ruskin that Turner was in fact representing nature in a deeper way than those who painted nature with pictorial realism. Ruskin eventually wrote four volumes of Modern Painters and could have remained a highly acclaimed art critic. TOC ↑The connection between aesthetics, spirituality, culture, and morality About Ruskin Sec 3 1. Ideas about society and morality increasingly found their way into his writing about art—and architecture. 2. “The Nature of Gothic” celebrates the stonemasons who worked on the cathedrals of Northern Europe because, Ruskin believed, they enjoyed artistic freedom. 3. Today when we prefer hand-crafted over machine-produced goods, we are drawing on Ruskin’s ideas. ▲1 For Ruskin, aesthetics were always tied to spirituality, culture and morality—probably a result of his deeply religious upbringing—and commentary on culture and morality increasingly found its way into his writing on art. Also, he developed an interest in architecture, an art form that (more than painting) focuses our attention on the workers who build the buildings and the ways of living that the buildings promote. ▲2 In a famous section, “The Nature of Gothic,” of his book The Stones of Venice (1851-31) Ruskin celebrates the stonemasons who crafted the gargoyles and other ornamentation on the cathedrals of Northern Europe because of what he perceived as the artistic freedom under which they worked. Ruskin, in other words, is focusing on the well-being of these craftsmen, and so argues that “servile” ornament, which requires human beings to work as though they were machines, is necessarily ugly. This argument about medieval craftsman extends into his fierce condemnation of division of labor and brutally repetitive factory work in his own day. ▲3 Today when we purchase hand-made pottery and other craft work in preference to products that have more “finish” due to their factory manufacture, we are drawing upon Ruskin’s thinking on aesthetics. TOC ↑The transition to social reformer About Ruskin Sec 4 1. December 1860 marked Ruskin's full transition from art critic to social reformer: He published the first part of Unto This Last. 2. Ruskin's argument angered the business elites that had previous enjoyed Ruskin’s art criticism. 3. Not until the end of the 19th Century and beyond did Ruskin’s ideas take hold. 4. Ruskin is regarded as one of the very first environmentalists. 5. Ruskin’s politics, however, were ultra-conservative and paternalistic. He rejects social equality or the political demands by workers. ▲1 In December 1860, with the appearance of the first of four essays in Cornhill Magazine, Ruskin made the full transition from art critic to social reformer. These essays were published in book form in 1862 as Unto This Last. These essays are a fierce attack on unregulated (laissez faire) capitalism 3 Unto This Last About John Ruskin and industrialism and the greed and cruelty of those who were in a position to alleviate the harsh conditions under which so many people worked and lived. They also challenge the era's orthodox theories of political economy (economics), which provided the justification for laissez faire capitalism. ▲2 Both the essay (and, later, the book) met a hostile reception from the wealthy business class that had enjoyed Ruskin’s art criticism. ▲3 Slowly, over several decades, the importance of Ruskin's social criticism was widely recognized and his ideas began to influence public policy. ▲4 The passages in Unto This Last dealing with the pollution of air and water, people’s need for green space, and the problem of sustainability show him to be one of the very first environmentalists. ▲5 Ruskin’s thinking, however, will also strike modern readers as peculiar and backward. Although Ruskin called for social reform, his politics were ultra-conservative. Abhorring socialism and talk of social equality, he did not want the oppressed to demand justice. Rather, he called upon the industrial elites to become morally responsible and generous and to care for each of their employees as a father cares for his children.