Ruskin Society

@ruskinsociety

Founded in 1997, the Ruskin Society celebrates the life, work and legacy of the Victorian art critic and social thinker John Ruskin. ruskinsociety.uk

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Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· 22d

🔶💚🔶 Ruskin's The Stones of Venice are only part of the story. Voices from Venice / Voci di Venezia conference explores the living city, its people, its lagoon and its future. Several fascinating conference talks from the Guild of St George, all available on the Guild's website. #Ruskin #Venice

The Exterior of the Ducal Palace, Venice (1852) by John Ruskin, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Pencil, ink and watercolour study of the seaward façade of the Doge's Palace. The palace occupies the left side of the composition, with its distinctive Gothic arcade at ground level and a loggia of pointed arches above. Ruskin carefully renders the tracery of two upper windows and the patterned stonework of the façade, while other areas are sketched more lightly. To the right, the Ponte della Paglia crosses a canal, beneath which several gondolas and figures are visible on the water. The Bridge of Sighs and adjoining buildings appear in the background. The drawing combines precise architectural observation with atmospheric effects, demonstrating Ruskin's close study of Venetian Gothic architecture.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· 23d

🍄29 August 2026📚 Dr Penny Bradshaw, author of An A–Z of Beatrix Potter & recent Wordsworth Prize winner, will be speaking at Kendal Museum on Beatrix Potter's “myriads of fairy fungi”. A fascinating exploration of the natural world that inspired Potter's work. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lunchtime-...

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· 23d

🔵 Ruskin’s attitude to the #AlpineClub was complex. He loved the #Alps as places of beauty, geology, science and art, but disliked treating mountains as trophies. This Dauphiné Alps notebook captures the impulse he resisted: chasing new passes, routes & first ascents. #Ruskin

Photograph of a dark blue book cover with gold lettering reading “Dauphiné Alps No. 2.” The book is held open inside a protective archival folder on a wooden table.

Photograph of an open nineteenth-century notebook or guidebook filled with dense handwritten notes about Alpine routes and climbs. The pages include headings, dates, place names and extracts from the Alpine Journal.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· 25d

🔵 The #AlpineClub was founded in 1857, but its story is also a #London property story. From St Martin’s Place to Savile Row, South Audley Street and finally Shoreditch, where the Club bought a former factory in the 1990s, when the area was still cheap and semi-derelict. A lucky gamble.

Exterior of the Alpine Club at 55 Charlotte Road, Shoreditch. The building has blue doors, blue window frames and Alpine Club signage in the windows, with a bicycle parked outside. Image credit: Haus of Hiatus.

Looking upward through a narrow brick courtyard at the Alpine Club’s Shoreditch building. Bright blue wooden loading doors rise on several floors, with an old sign reading “W. A. Hudson Ltd. Furnishing Brassfounders,” hinting at the building’s industrial past.
Image credit: Hinksman

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· 28d

🎭 World premiere at Camden Fringe Festival 2026. A burnt‑out PhD student boards a train and finds John Ruskin sitting opposite. Art, doubt, ambition, failure & the cost of tethering our worth to accomplishment. 🎭 *Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin* Circle and Star Theatre, Hampstead 5–7 August

Cream-coloured theatre poster for Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin. At the top, the title appears in large dark serif lettering. Below, an ornate bronze frame surrounds a hand-drawn scene of two bearded men seated opposite each other in blue train seats: Michael Nolan, wearing purple, and Victorian art critic John Ruskin, wearing a patterned red and grey jacket. Small text identifies the image as “Michael Nolan and John Ruskin in Conversation, 1997.” The poster announces “A New Play with Music” by Dan Callaway and Joey Nicoletti, presented at Camden Fringe Festival, Circle and Star Theatre in Hampstead, 5–7 August 2026.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 13

🔶 Artists, designers & makers worldwide. Entries are open for the 9th John Ruskin Prize, themed “Not for Present Delight.” All media welcome, with £9,500 in prizes & selected work exhibited in London. Deadline: 17 Nov 2026 Search “The John Ruskin Prize” for details. #ArtPrize #JohnRuskinPrize

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 11

🔵 From the @alpineclub.bsky.social archives, the minute book recording John Ruskin’s election in 1869. Just below, the annual winter dinner appears in the same records, neatly showing that the #AlpineClub was not only about climbing, but also about sociability, debate, lectures and dining. #Ruskin

Photograph of a handwritten Alpine Club minute book page. Near the top, the text records that “The following candidates were duly elected,” followed by several names, including “Mr John Ruskin” as the first listed candidate. The page also includes notes on another member reading “some notes on photography in the High Alps,” and a later section listing attendees at the annual winter dinner.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 10

🔵 In the foothills of the Alps Ruskin knew so well, his 1861 view of the Kapellbrücke at Luzern shows the bridge crossing towards the Wasserturm, with the Hofkirche above and the Reuss below. Ruskin’s influence in Britain helped rally support to preserve the bridge. #Ruskin #AlpineHistory

Watercolour by John Ruskin showing Lucerne’s Kapellbrücke, the covered wooden bridge over the River Reuss. The bridge runs diagonally across the left side of the image towards the tall stone Wasserturm on the right. Its tiled roof and timber supports are reflected in pale blue-green water, with small boats moored beneath and the faint outline of buildings and church towers in the misty background.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 9

🟠 Ruskin was invited to join the Alpine Club @alpineclub.bsky.social in 1869 because members admired his intensely visual descriptions of the Alps. On their applications, most candidates listed mountains climbed. Ruskin’s listed his “qualification” simply as: 📙Modern Painters, Vol. IV. #Ruskin

Photograph of a handwritten Alpine Club membership entry for John Ruskin. The page records him as living at Denmark Hill, S.W., and as “Slade Professor at Oxford.” His proposer is Rev. H. B. George and his seconder is Rev. R. St J. Tyrwhitt. Under “Qualifications,” the entry gives “Modern Painters Vol. IV.” At the bottom, it notes that Ruskin was proposed on 12 November 1869 and elected on 15 December 1869.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 7

⬇️ Exhibition intro panel in the Blue room #Brantwood #LakeDistrict Treasures of the Earth: The Mineral World of John Ruskin www.brantwood.org.uk/treasures-of... 📸 Roy Starkey, who also opened the exhibition

Two exhibition panels side by side.
The left panel is a 1965 reward notice for a stolen 133‑carat octahedral diamond from the Natural History Museum, showing two photos of the uncut pale‑yellow crystal and offering £750 for information leading to its recovery.
The right panel introduces the exhibition Treasures of the Earth: The Mineral World of John Ruskin, describing Ruskin’s lifelong interest in minerals and noting that the show reunites specimens from his dispersed collection, with acknowledgements to curators and lending institutions.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 7

Amid our Alpine posts, a timely update from #Brantwood, Ruskin’s home, now a museum in the #LakeDistrict. The exhibition ‘Treasures of the Earth’ has opened in the Blue Gallery. Curated by Howard Hull, Brantwood, and Professor Sandra Kemp, The Ruskin – Museum & Research Institute.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 7

Away from the crowds stands La Pierre à Ruskin, where #Ruskin spent quiet evenings beneath the Brévent, looking towards Mont Blanc & the Aiguilles Rouges. In 1925 his admirers marked the spot with a bronze medallion—a tribute to one of the Alps' most attentive observers. #AlpineClubVisit

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 5

⛅💚 Break from the #Alpine theme continues. We couldn’t resist this pic by @robincooper1.bsky.social, walking in Ruskin’s footsteps. Coniston under a theatre of dark clouds. Fields suddenly lit like enamel, fells withdrawing into shadow. That unmistakable #LakeDistrict drama between weather & light.

Landscape near Coniston Hall, with vivid green fields lit by a break in the clouds. Dark fells rise beyond Coniston Water under a dramatic, heavy sky, creating a strong contrast between bright pasture and shadowed hills. Photo by Robin Cooper.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 4

🏡🍃 A little break from the Alpine posts. Magnolia in bloom on 4 July. Usually the second flush comes later, around mid August. Anyone else seeing early flowers this year? #Magnolia #JulyBloom #BotanicalIntermezzo

Magnolia tree with glossy green leaves and several pink purple buds opening in early July, catching the light and looking weeks ahead of their usual August bloom.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 4

Considering the sheer brain power in our group, from writers & historians to professors - peeps who know their stuff inside out - you captivated us all! Well done, @alpineclublib.bsky.social Though the ice axes & sharply pointed alpine poles might’ve helped maintain discipline😅 #AlpineClubVisit

Collage from an Alpine Club library visit. It shows mountaineering artefacts including ice axes, a long pointed alpine pole, plaques and a carved mountaineer clock, alongside Emma from the Alpine Club Library presenting a huge archive volume. Other guests are gathered among bookshelves, with one person pointing toward a wall-mounted ice axe display.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 4

🌄⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A wonderful day at the Alpine Club. We loved the Club’s super knowledgeable librarian @alpineclublib.bsky.social, who gave us a fascinating talk & showed us the Club’s Ruskin watercolours. Thanks to The Brush Grand Café @artotel for a delicious lunch. More photos & Alps to come. #Ruskin

A collage of six photos from a visit to the Alpine Club. One image shows tall bookshelves filled with mountaineering and climbing books. Another shows the Alpine Club sign with a blue mountain emblem and “1857 Alpine Club” written beneath it. One photo shows the librarian presenting framed alpine photographs on a table in an exhibition space. Another shows two people standing by a bookshelf, discussing a book. One image shows a plate of plantain chips served over hummus with chickpeas and herbs. The final photo shows a large old manuscript being shown to three people seated in a library room with alpine photographs on the walls.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 3

🌄🤩🌄 Today the Ruskin Society visits the Alpine Club. In 1888, beneath the “cloudless peace of the snows of Chamouni”, Ruskin completed the Epilogue to Modern Painters. The Alps had schooled his eye—and his conscience. #Ruskin #AlpineClubVisit

Cover of Modern Painters by John Ruskin, edited and abridged by David Barrie (Pilkington Press, London, 2005).
The cover features a dramatic Romantic landscape painting: swirling golden clouds and bright light dominate the sky above a rugged terrain with small human figures below. The colours are rich and earthy, giving the scene a luminous, atmospheric quality. The publisher, Pilkington Press, is noted at the bottom.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 2

🌄🤩🌄 #Ruskin joined the Alpine Club in December 1869. He embodied its highest purpose perfectly: “better knowledge of the mountains through literature, science and art”. Tomorrow we follow that thread to the Club itself. #AlpineClubVisit @alpineclub.bsky.social @alpineclublib.bsky.social

John Ruskin, Moonlight, Chamonix (1866), watercolour and pencil on paper. A luminous blue-grey watercolour of the Chamonix valley beneath a moonlit sky. Dark mountain slopes rise on the left, while pale glaciers and misty peaks recede into the distance. The valley floor and river catch the moonlight, creating a quiet, atmospheric study of the Alps that combines careful observation with poetic mood.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jul 1

#Ruskin kept returning to the #Alps not to conquer summits but to understand them. He drew glaciers like the Mer de Glace with extraordinary geological precision, recording their form & movement. His works are now invaluable records of Alpine glacier loss. #AlpineClubVisit #ClimateChange

John Ruskin, The Mer de Glace from the Montanvers Hotel above Chamonix (1849). Viewed from above, the broad glacier fills the valley with a maze of jagged ice ridges and deep crevasses. Steep rocky slopes rise on either side, leading the eye towards distant snow-covered peaks beneath a pale, hazy sky. Executed in graphite, pen and ink, and delicate brown and blue-grey washes, the drawing combines artistic beauty with remarkable geological precision.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 30

#Ruskin deeply admired the Alpine guides & mountain families shaped by the high valleys. The Couttets were among Chamonix’s great guiding families. Joseph Marie Couttet reached the summit of Mont Blanc in 1821 & later guided Ruskin himself through the glacier world. #AlpineClubVisit #Alps #Couttet

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 29

#Ruskin's Flora of Chamouni (1844; facsimile 2024) is an album of flowers he collected, pressed & named around Chamonix. Decades later, he still studied flowers with the same patience and scientific precision. His 1882 gentian shows the lessons of the Alps never left him. #Botany #AlpineClubVisit

John Ruskin, ‘Study of a quatrefoil fringed gentian’, 1882, 1996P1296 © The Ruskin, Lancaster University.
John Ruskin's 1882 botanical study of a quatrefoil fringed gentian. A vivid blue Alpine gentian is shown in meticulous detail, with several open flowers and buds rising from slender green stems and narrow leaves against a plain cream background. Ruskin records the plant with scientific precision whilst preserving its delicacy and elegance.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 28

#Ruskin also photographed the #Alps. In 1849, with his valet John Hobbs, he made Alpine daguerreotypes, including what is often credited as the 1st photo of the #Matterhorn. His daguerreotypes were rediscovered by Ken & Jenny Jacobson in Penrith, #Cumbria, in 2006. #AlpineClubVisit #Photography

The photograph shows the Matterhorn rising sharply above the Riffelsee, with the mountain and surrounding peaks reflected in the lake. The image has the ghostly, silvery quality of a daguerreotype, with scratches, fading and darkened edges, which makes it feel both fragile and very early.

The story is a good one. In 1849, Ruskin was travelling in the Alps with his valet John Hobbs. Hobbs handled much of the technical photographic work, while Ruskin directed the looking, framing and purpose. This image is usually identified as the Matterhorn from the Riffelsee, taken on 8 August 1849, and is often credited as the first photograph of the Matterhorn. The Riffelsee viewpoint was ideal because it captured both the mountain and its reflection in the lake.

Ruskin’s lost daguerreotypes were rediscovered by Ken and Jenny Jacobson at Penrith Farmers’ & Kidd’s auction house in Cumbria in 2006, and later published in their book Carrying Off the Palaces: John Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes in 2015.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 27

For #Ruskin, the #Alps were not only peaks and glaciers but also weather, light, cloud, and atmosphere. In works such as Dawn at Neuchâtel, he studied the sky with the same seriousness he brought to rock and mountain form. John Ruskin, Dawn at Neuchâtel (1866) #Clouds #AlpineClub #RuskinSociety

John Ruskin’s Dawn at Neuchâtel 1866, a watercolour cloudscape showing a warm orange dawn sky above a distant range of pale, snow-tipped mountains. Bands of blue-grey cloud stretch across the horizon, with soft atmospheric light reflected in the lower foreground.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 26

Ruskin went to the #Alps with #Turner in mind. In 1842, among Chamonix peaks & changing weather, he found the vision that would become Modern Painters: art must be judged by truth to nature, not convention. J. M. W. Turner, The Blue Rigi, Sunrise, 1842, Tate #RuskinSociety @alpineclub.bsky.social

J. M. W. Turner, The Blue Rigi, Sunrise, 1842, Tate. A pale, luminous dawn spreads across Lake Lucerne, rendered almost entirely in cool blues and soft violets. The mountain of the Rigi rises on the right, its long slope forming a single, calm silhouette. Turner paints it as a broad, mist‑softened mass, the summit catching the faintest warmth of early light. The mountain’s lower half dissolves into atmospheric haze, so that its base seems to hover above the lake.

The sky is a gradation of delicate colour: near the horizon a thin band of warm peach and gold signals the first touch of sunrise, but it is quickly overtaken by wide washes of blue that deepen as they rise. Turner’s brushwork is fluid and transparent, letting the paper’s whiteness glow through the sky and water.

The lake occupies the lower half of the composition, perfectly still, reflecting the mountain and the pale sky in long, horizontal strokes. The reflection is slightly blurred, as if the light is trembling on the surface. Near the centre‑left, a small boat with two or three figures glides across the water. It is little more than a dark, calligraphic mark, but it anchors the scene and gives scale to the vastness around it.

On the far shore, faint suggestions of buildings and trees appear as tiny vertical touches of pigment—barely there, almost ghosted by distance. Everything is suffused with Turner’s characteristic atmospheric veil: edges dissolve, forms melt into light, and the whole scene feels suspended between night and day.

The dominant impression is serenity: a mountain emerging from blue shadow, a lake holding the first colour of morning, and human presence reduced to a quiet silhouette moving through the immensity of nature.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 25

#Chamonix did not merely delight #Ruskin; it helped make him. The #Alps were his schoolroom long before they were his subject. His father complained his son knew “the shape of every needle round Mont Blanc” but scarcely where Threadneedle Street was. #RuskinSocietyVisit @alpineclub.bsky.social

John Ruskin, Charmoz Needles, 1849, watercolor, 30 x 40 cm, Lancaster University, The Ruskin Library.
Jagged Aiguilles of Chamonix rise above the valley in a finely observed watercolor, their rock forms crisply separated against the sky.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 24

Aged 15, #Ruskin asked for de Saussure's Voyages dans les Alpes as a b'day gift. Through its maps, geology, & observations, he learnt to read mountains with scientific precision & wonder. That education would later find expression in Modern Painters and Deucalion. #Geology @alpineclub.bsky.social

Collage of five illustrations from Horace-Bénédict de Saussure's 1780 Voyages dans les Alpes. A large title page occupies the left side. On the right are four engraved plates: a map of Lake Geneva and the Mont Blanc region, a circular geological view from the summit of the Glacier du Buet, fossil and shell studies, and a panoramic landscape of Lake Geneva with the Alps beyond. Together they illustrate the blend of geography, geology, natural history, and scenic beauty that fascinated the young John Ruskin.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 23

Aged 14, #Ruskin first saw the #Alps and never forgot them: "They were clear as crystal, sharp on the pure horizon sky, and already tinged with rose by the sinking sun." In #Praeterita he called that moment "the opening of the first page" of the Earth's volume. @alpineclub.bsky.social #Visit

The aiguilles of the Mont Blanc massif above Chamonix. The aiguilles of the Mont Blanc massif above Chamonix. Pink dawn light touches the jagged granite peaks and glaciers of the Mont Blanc massif, with Alpine meadows in the foreground.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 22

An Alpine welcome to our countdown to the RuskinSociety's visit to the Alpine Club on 3 July. John Ruskin first saw Chamonix as a boy & returned nearly twenty times. We suspect this ibex, surveying its kingdom beneath Mont Blanc, would've met with his approval. 📷 couttetlovera #Ruskin #Chamonix

An Alpine ibex with long curved horns rests atop the roof ridge of a wooden chalet, with the snow-covered peaks and glaciers of the Mont Blanc massif rising dramatically behind. Green meadows and trees in the foreground contrast with the bright ice and rock above. Photo courtesy of @couttetloveracarol.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 14

The Ruskin Society will visit the Alpine Club @alpineclub.bsky.social in London on 3 July. Ruskin was a member. We will see his membership records, artworks, and the Club’s extensive mountaineering library @alpineclublib.bsky.social The visit is free. Places are limited, contact us to book.

Ruskin Society@ruskinsociety· Jun 13

Even as he wrote the most tender pages of #Praeterita, #Ruskin lived with the tormenting belief that he had failed utterly, squandered his genius, and in doing so had disappointed not only his parents, his friends, and his fellow travellers on this earth, but God Himself.