“The first centre and circle of future life-work”: Ruskin and France

Abstract

Having traveled extensively around Great Britain and the Continent from a young age, John Ruskin developed strong emotional, aesthetic, and intellectual connections with many of the places he visited. For Ruskin, beloved cities, towns, mountains, and rivers were not merely favorite retreats, but an essential part of his life story; his autobiography, Praeterita, is in large part a record of the places that shaped him. Keith Hanley suggests that for Ruskin, the Alps, Italy, areas of the English countryside generally and Brantwood in particular, embodied aspects of the Holy Land, from which Ruskin emerged as “a missionary, bringing the good news to the British people” (185). Ruskin’s love of Venice, that “Paradise of cities” (35.296)1 whose principal church he described as “the central building of the world” (9.38), is particularly well known. Ruskin returned to Venice again and again, studying its history, art, and architecture, immersing himself in its atmosphere, and seeing its material and moral decline as a warning for England.