Modern Painters Vol 1

Reproduction of the original: Modern Painters by John Ruskin

The towering literary achievement of the Victorian age, a land mark in art criticism, is now available for the first time in an illustrated and annotated abridgement, a manageable size for the general reader. 87 illustrations, 20 in color.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

The first volume of Ruskin's acclaimed artistic analyses is presented here complete with original and supplementary illustrations, and the original diagrams. One of the most lauded art critics of the nineteenth century, John Ruskin built a reputation as a well-informed, passionate figure in the world of painting and sculpture. As well as working as a lecturer and advocate of social reform, Ruskin would devote much time to writing books on all manner of subjects; travelogues, poetry and instructive manuals to name but a few. However Ruskin was best regarded for his treatises on art and architecture. Decades of his life were characterised by attempting to find a plainer, more straightforward way of expressing his thoughts on artistic works so that his ideas and criticisms would achieve the greatest impact on the readership. In Modern Painters, Ruskin was reasonably successful: each portion of this book is set out logically, with each chapter covering a specific principle of the creative process. We observe Ruskin's thoughts about how artists may best convey aspects of their painting through the apt presentation of colors, scenes and subjects. In particular, Ruskin describes the works of the Romanticist J. M. W. Turner - an artist he viewed as almost the embodiment of greatness. This volume is in two parts - Of General Principles and Of Truth. The first part covers the various ideas and motivations which Ruskin believed characterised all artists to some extent, and the sense of power and profundity works of art communicate to those beholding them. What constitutes a great work of art, and the various ideas and feelings art has the ability to convey, are also discussed. The second part contains sequential examinations of the constituent parts of a painting. Thus there are sections on light, on water, on the earth and vegetation, and theories on the use of color. We also hear Ruskin's complex theories of the 'truths' in art, wherein he expounds on how an artist may best achieve truth and beauty in his work, and even makes distinctions between different types of truth.

This eBook version of Modern Painters, Volume 1 presents the full text of this literary classic.

This is the first complete translation of the biographies of fifteen artists, including Annibale Carracci, Carvaggio, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Poussin, written by the seventeenth-century antiquarian Giovan Pietro Bellori. Originally conceived as a continuation of Vasari's famous Lives, it is a fundamental source for seventeenth-century Italian art and artistic theory, providing detailed descriptions of extant and lost works of art, while casting light on the cultural politics of contemporary Rome and the relations between Rome and France. The importance of Bellori's Lives lies in the scrupulous documentation of artists, many of whom he knew personally; the author's detailed descriptions of their works; and his exposition of the classicist theory of art in the introductory lecture, the Idea. This volume contains the twelve Lives published in the original edition of 1672 and three Lives (Guido Reni, Andrea Sacchi, and Carlo Maratti) that survive in manuscript form and that were published for the first time in 1942.