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John Ruskin Quotes about Art

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Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.

Art, Men, Hands

'The Two Paths' (1859) lecture 2

All art is but dirtying the paper delicately.

Art, Drawing, Paper

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

Art, Thoughtful, Color

1851-3 The Stones ofVenice, vol.ii, ch.5.

A man is born an artist as a hippopotamus is born a hippopotamus; and you can no more make yourself one than you can make yourself a giraffe.

Art, Men, Giraffe

John Ruskin (1894). “Letters on Art and Literature”

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.

Positive, Art, Reality

What does cookery mean? It means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe, and of Calypso, and Sheba. It means knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms and spices... It means the economy of your great-grandmother and the science of modern chemistry, and French art, and Arabian hospitality. It means, in fine, that you are to see imperatively that everyone has something nice to eat.

Art, Nice, Food

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

Art, Perfection, Saying Nothing

John Ruskin (1862). “pt. I. Of genral principles. pt. II. Of truth. v. 4. pt. v. Of mountain beauty”, p.352

No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.

Art, Architecture, Painter

'Lectures on Architecture and Painting' (1853) 61, addenda

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last. The acts of a nation may be triumphant by its good fortune; and its words mighty by the genius of a few of its children: but its art, only by the general gifts and common sympathies of the race.

Art, Children, Book

St. Mark's Rest preface (1877)

Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth.

Art, Truth, Firsts

John Ruskin (1872). “The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9”, p.38

Never has interest in art been so high, and never has quality been so low.

Art, Quality, Lows

the art of becoming 'rich', in the common sense, is not absolutely nor finally the art of accumulating much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our neighbour shall have less. In accurate terms, it is 'the art of establishing the maximum inequality in your own favour'.

Art, Common Sense, Becoming

John Ruskin (1938). “Unto this last: and other essays”

Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.

Life, Art, Political

"Lectures on Art: Delivered Before the University of Oxford in Hilary Term, 1870".

It is a shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to literary productions in rhyme and meter rhythm. The written poem is only poetry talking, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are poetry acting. Milton and Goethe, at their desks, were not more truly poets than Phidias with his chisel, Raphael at his easel, or deaf Beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains, which he himself could never hope to hear.

Art, Talking, Piano

The art of drawing which is of more real importance to the human race than that of writing...should be taught to every child just as writing is.

Art, Children, Real

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.

Art, Book, Writing

St. Mark's Rest preface (1877)

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

Art, Soul, Literature

John Ruskin (2015). “The Stones of Venice”, p.312, John Ruskin

Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline.

Art, Progress, Decline

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.120

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

Art, Work, Perfect

John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.183, University of Virginia Press

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

Art, Ideas, Numbers

Modern Painters vol. 1, pt. 1, ch. 2 (1843)

All great art is the expression of man's delight in God's work, not his own.

Art, Inspirational Life, Men

John Ruskin (1871). “Selections from the Writings of John Ruskin”, p.331

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his readers is sure to skip them.

Art, Writing, Discipline

"A Joy for Ever: And Its Price in the Market". Book by John Ruskin, note 6, 1857.

All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent.

Art, Greek, Visionaries

John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.58, University of Virginia Press

Nothing can be true which is either complete or vacant; every touch is false which does not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which represents nothing.

Art, Truth, Space

John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.28, University of Virginia Press

No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.

Art, Doe, Noble

John Ruskin (2015). “Lectures on Architecture and Painting”, p.93, John Ruskin

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