Ruskin and the Aesthetics of Color

Abstract

Explains why an understanding of color and its uses was important to Ruskin as a defining element of modern art. Comments on the way color prompted his memory and forced him to grapple with ways of representing this phenomenon in his prose. Suggests Modern Painters, a work containing many of Ruskin’s attempts to explain the nature and effect of color, is a pivotal work for understanding his place in the history of aesthetics.