Latest news with #JohnRuskin
Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Tintoretto's ‘Crucifixion' Is Resurrected in Venice
Venice Tintoretto's 'Crucifixion' in this city's Sala dell'Albergo ('board room') of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, completed in 1565, provokes hyperbole, and not just because of its impressive size—a monumental 17 by 40 feet. In September 1845, the 26-year-old aspiring critic John Ruskin wrote to his father, in London, that he had been 'quite overwhelmed' by the 'enormous powers' of 'Tintoret.' He was so moved by the 'Crucifixion' that in his book 'The Stones of Venice' he declared it 'beyond all analysis and above all praise.' The art historian and Tintoretto specialist Frederick Ilchman, a curator of the 2018-19 exhibition commemorating the 500th anniversary of the artist's birth, regards the 'Crucifixion' as his greatest work. And one young painter recently told me that seeing the painting changed his life.
The Guardian
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Made in Walthamstow: a football kit that brought a community together
In an address to the Trades Guild of Learning in 1877, William Morris, the Victorian poet, textile designer and soon-to-be socialist, said: 'I do not want art for a few, any more than I want education for a few, or freedom for a few.' In an unequal society in which the elites and middle classes had the time and money to spend on the arts, while the working classes toiled away for them, Morris imagined a community where art was available for all and could be found in one's work (or craft). It was a grand vision, influenced by Karl Marx and John Ruskin, but one that he was ultimately unable to achieve in his lifetime. Morris's life was one of contradictions: a radical socialist who was simultaneously a successful businessman designing wallpapers and upholstery for middle class houses and earning £1,800 a year for his troubles (enough to afford his family six servants). In many ways contradictions have followed Morris into the afterlife. A man who warned patrons against his imitators and argued that 'machines can do everything – except make works of art', is now being imitated by generative artificial intelligence with the resulting products being passed off as art on Etsy and Temu. In a world where Morris's designs are divorced from his radical thinking and his patterns have come to symbolise a return to traditional Victorian values or thoughtlessly adorn cheap mugs, there is one contemporary object that perfectly embodies all that Morris stood for. In 2023 Walthamstow FC, the William Morris Gallery, Wood Street Walls and Admiral Sportswear collaborated to create Walthamstow FC's 2023-25 home and away kits. It was the first time that a museum had collaborated with a football club on a kit and the result was one of the best kits of the year, anywhere. Now, I like this kit for a few reasons. First, I've lived in Walthamstow all my life. I don't mean to brag but the first game I ever attended was a Walthamstow FC game (or Waltham Forest as they were known then). Seeing my local club's kit and learning about its ambition to create a women's team using the money raised from kit sales filled me with a great sense of pride. Second, there was something poetic about a side in the eighth tier of English football showing billionaire-backed Premier League outfits how to properly design a football kit. Forget the first kit, copy and pasted from last season; the away kit, a retro remake of the classic 1980s kit; the third kit, a neon number that nobody wears; and the limited edition fourth, a collaboration with a fashion house desperate for a piece of the sweet football pie. Instead, tell a story about a hometown hero and pay homage to football heritage by teaming up with the creators of the first replica football kit. Third, and most importantly, the kit is something Morris would probably have approved of. What better way to make art accessible to all than through the game of the people? Given the game's working class roots, the Walthamstow FC kit has achieved what Morris could never quite do in his lifetime: make art that is carefully crafted yet affordable for the masses. 'Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful,' Morris said. A shirt that functions as a football kit and a fantastic fashion piece ticks both boxes. So, I decided to direct a documentary about it. Made in Walthamstow explores the history of replica football kits, the significance of Morris and the power of community in Walthamstow. Featuring the major players in the project – from Hadrian Garrard, the director of the William Morris Gallery, to local MP Stella Creasy – the documentary is a celebration of all it means to be from Walthamstow. It was a real labour of love and not in the William Morris sense of the phrase. I funded the film, shot the interviews, edited the footage and organised screenings at the William Morris Gallery, Orford House and Forest School. It was all worth it for a story so close to my heart. And, just as Morris would have wanted, the documentary is out now, available for all to see.
Irish Times
19-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
‘She destroyed Ruskin's life': Brian Maye on the young Irish girl who caught the art historian and social reformer's attention
The art historian, essayist and social reformer John Ruskin, after whom Ruskin College in Oxford is named, is well known, but what may not be so well known is his extraordinary – and perhaps disturbing – relationship with a young Irish girl and woman who many have described as his 'muse'. Her name was Rose La Touche and she died 150 years ago on May 25th. She was born in 1848 into a family of Huguenot background who were bankers. Her father was John La Touche, her mother Maria Price, the only child of the Dowager Countess of Desart, and the family lived in Harristown House, Co Kildare. Little is known of Rose's childhood; it is likely she was privately tutored, as were many of her class at the time. Her mother was introduced to John Ruskin by her friend Lady Waterford and asked him for help with her children's education. In a letter to him, she said she regarded him highly as an art teacher, that she thought art education important and believed that Rose had potential talent in that area. When he called on the La Touches, he was taken with them and 'felt there was something exceptional about Rose', according to Tim Hilton's book, John Ruskin: The Early Years (1985). In his memoir Praeterita, published towards the end of his life, Ruskin recalled that at that first meeting, 'presently the drawing room door opened, and Rosie came in, quietly taking stock of me with her blue eyes as she walked across the room, gave me her hand, as a good dog gives its paw, and then stood a little back'. READ MORE He was 39 at the time and she almost 10. He considered her of normal height for her age and continued: 'The eyes were rather deep blue at that time, and fuller and softer than afterwards, lips perfectly lovely in profile – a little too wide and hard in edge, seen in front; the rest of the features were what a fair, well-bred Irish girl's usually are, the hair perhaps more graceful in short curl around the forehead, and softer than one sees often, in the close-bound tresses above the neck.' It was almost as if he were painting her portrait – certainly the description is like the detailed one an artist would see – but how appropriate it was of a female child by a middle-aged man is debatable. As time went on, Ruskin found her a puzzle, according to Tim Hilton; in some ways she was precocious and in others child-like. 'I don't know what to make of her … She wears her round hat in the sauciest way possible and is a firm, fiery little thing,' Ruskin wrote. He certainly became fascinated with her and some commentators have speculated as to when he actually 'fell in love' with her, suggesting that it was some time when she was between 14 and 18 years of age. At her parents' request, the Scottish author, poet and Congregational minister George MacDonald oversaw her welfare in their absence and acted as go-between, close friend and adviser to both parties in the relationship. According to one source, Ruskin proposed to her when she was 18, but she asked him to wait until she was 21. It seems her parents were against the union, having been warned about him by his first wife, Effie Gray, whose six-year marriage to him had been annulled because of non-consummation. When Rose was legally free to decide for herself, she still turned him down. It has been suggested that her doctors told her that she was unfit for marriage. It would seem that she suffered from anorexia, which may have stunted her sexual development. She certainly suffered from poor health and died at the young age of 27 in a Dublin nursing home where her parents had placed her. Her death has been ascribed to various causes, such as madness, a broken heart, religious mania or hysteria, but it is likely that anorexia was a major factor. Ruskin never recovered from her loss, which tipped him into periods of insanity. In an article in The Guardian (February 12th, 2005), Philip Hoare, author of England's Lost Eden (2005: a study of myth, spiritualism and the search for Utopia during Victorian times), who discovered a cache of long-lost letters between Rose and Ruskin, said the relationship had destroyed Ruskin's life. In Praeterita, Ruskin reprinted in full the first letter Rose had ever sent him. Hoare described the letter as 'pathetic, inconsequential, a child's report on a day out in Nice … but in its innocent prattle lay the source of Ruskin's pain and all that followed it'. Some parallels between the Ruskin-Rose relationship and that between Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell seem obvious. Perhaps in the case of both men concerned, their focus was on the aesthetic rather than the sexual aspects of relationships.
The Independent
18-05-2025
- The Independent
Why remote South Georgia just happens to be the greatest island on Earth
'One cannot be angry when one looks at a penguin,' wrote the English essayist John Ruskin in 1860. And he was right. Whether it was tears of joy, or my eyes watering at the fishy pong of several hundred thousand king penguins shoehorned along St Andrews Bay beach, I was wreathed in smiles. This was my fourth visit to the subantarctic British Overseas Territory of South Georgia. Not only is it the most intense wildlife-watching island on Earth, with millions of penguins and seals, and skies swirling with albatrosses, it's also a paradigm for ecosystem recovery that offers a blueprint for how humanity might just protect global biodiversity via non-intervention. For any wildlife-lover considering a trip of a lifetime to Antarctica, I'd recommend the extra time and cost to include it in your voyage. Biologically, it's like Antarctica on steroids. The island lies two days sailing east of the Falkland Islands and two days north of Antarctica. Mountainous and glaciated, cascading meltwater streams incise surf-wracked beaches surrounded by a cold sea, rich with krill that is feasted upon by marine mammals. It's only reachable by expedition cruise vessel because there is no airport nor tourist accommodation ashore. Typical cruises to this region are 11-day voyages sailing back-and-forth between Ushuaia in southern Argentina to the Antarctic Peninsula, yet some vessels offer extended itineraries factoring in South Georgia and the Falklands. These less-frequent three-week epics are typically £4-5,000 more than a standalone Antarctic trip during the austral summer season (November-March). Arriving from the Falklands, I begin a four-day traverse down South Georgia's eastern coast onboard M/S Seaventure with 102 fellow passengers. The coastal waters soon fizz with diving whales and feeding penguins skimming along like bouncing bombs. Above, wandering albatrosses, possessing the avian world's largest wingspan, soar effortlessly on the billowing winds. 'From a natural history perspective, you have that combination of a David Attenborough documentary where you're completely surrounded by wildlife that doesn't care about your presence,' says Dan Brown, our sharp-eyed ornithologist. 'Humans completely exploited the island and drove most animals towards extinction but now everything is rebounding.' Since James Cook claimed it for Britain in 1775, South Georgia has been rather mournful. By the time Ernest Shackleton washed up here on a small lifeboat in 1916 after escaping Antarctica when the Endurance sank, sealers had decimated its seals and penguins. Thereafter, Norwegian whalers plundered the Southern Ocean's whales until the mid-1960s when there were none left to be flensed. Argentinian soldiers invaded in 1982 and precipitated the Falklands conflict – and it made global news more recently when an iceberg called A23a, twice the area of New York City, grounded off South Georgia's western coastline. Our ship's captain had the titanic sense to steer well clear. Now left alone, South Georgia's wildlife has recovered rampantly. Each day, we venture ashore by Zodiac dinghies. This is never straightforward because penguins and seals are so densely packed along the shoreline, there is little space to land. We first disembark at Rosita Harbour in the Bay of Isles. Framed by shadowy fog-obscured cliffs, the shingle beach writhes with adolescent seal pups. By the late 19th century, fur seals numbered a few thousand here, but ending sealing, and the creation of a marine protected zone to defend the surrounding ocean's krill stocks from overfishing, has helped their population balloon to 5.5 million. Wide-eyed and adorable, the pups play-fight in the surf and bound enthusiastically towards us from the coarse tussock-grass clumps (South Georgia has no trees). We are advised to stand tall and spread our arms to appear formidable and, indeed, they back down. 'It's a quieter site to start as we wanted to manage expectations,' says the Australian expedition leader, Marty Garwood. Expectations, however, soon skyrocket. Several hours later, we pass blue whales, the largest mammal ever to exist. They are slowly recovering here post-whaling. Elsewhere, humpback whales, who've been causing a stir with a flurry of sightings in UK waters, are commonplace and sometimes breach the waves in breathtaking aerial displays. Seven relic whaling stations remain on South Georgia, mostly off-limits due to dangerous structures and asbestos. We hike between two of them – from Leith to Stromness – where I sight the old manager's wooden house where Shackleton arrived after a desperate hike from the opposite uninhabited west coast, across the island's forbidding mountainous spine, to safety. The one former whaling station that visitors can explore, Grytviken retains a poignant Shackleton connection. Along a shoreline of decaying whaling vessels, one with a harpoon gun still mounted, I walk to a pretty wooden church, built in 1913 by the Norwegian whaling community, where Shackleton's funeral service took place, and then to the small cemetery, surrounded by a white picket fence, where he was buried, his headstone inscribed with the poetry of Robert Browning. He died offshore in 1922 on board the Quest on the verge of another Antarctic venture. Custom dictated I toasted his headstone with a dram of whisky. Grytviken is not all about ghosts, however. A handful of administrative staff and scientists live here monitoring the marine protection zone – and there's a museum and post office-plus-gift shop where I send a postcard back home, although it will take months to arrive. All proceeds go to the South Georgia Heritage Trust (SGHT) which funds protection of the island's history and nature. It raised £8 million for a rat eradication program, enabling colonies of nesting albatross and the Southern Ocean's only songbird, an endemic pipit, to flourish once again after their chicks and eggs had previously been decimated by the rodents. 'I've been coming here since 2014 – South Georgia just draws me back,' SGHT's island director, Deirdre Mitchell, tells me. She spends six months on the island each season. 'I've never been anywhere like it,' she says. 'Such wilderness on my doorstep where wildlife is the top dog, and we exist around it.' SGHT is currently fundraising to build a memorial to the 175,000 whales killed here, due to be unveiled this year. That afternoon, we step ashore on St Andrews Bay's beach, home to the world's largest colony of king penguins, some 175,000 pairs. This metre-high species has golden-treacle splashes of colour and is beautifully photogenic. They sneak up on you, cocking their heads out of curiosity before tilting their slender necks skywards to emit calls like an orchestra of kazoos. When we finally leave to sail south to Antarctica, South Georgia delivers a spectacular farewell. A dozen orca race our bow, causing shrieks and whoops from all of us on board as they crisscross in front of Seaventure. Watching with me is Conny Bartl, director of sales with Polar Latitudes, who chartered the vessel. 'I asked a writer once on one of these voyages what words he would use to describe South Georgia,' she said. 'He said I'd be better asking a poet'. How to do it A 25-day tailor-made trip to Antarctica with Audley Travel costs from £19,700 per person (based on two sharing). The itinerary includes an 18-night Polar Latitudes 'Falklands, South Georgia & Antarctica' cruise in a window stateroom as well as three nights in Buenos Aires (B&B) and two nights in Ushuaia (B&B). The price also includes international and domestic flights and transfers. Mark travelled to Antarctica as a guest of Audley Travel.
