The Desire of My Eyes by Wolfgang Kemp

The Desire of My Eyes by Wolfgang Kemp

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Summary

A critical study of John Ruskin's thought and writing in the context of the events of his life. This book demonstrates that his life was influenced by his early visits to the Continent with his parents, and on the theories of nature which he worked on there.

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The Desire of My Eyes by Wolfgang Kemp

Though he often wrote in matchless prose, Ruskin's thought developed slowly and sometimes repetitively. His ideas, if we come to them unprepared, can seem obscure, confused, and difficult to grasp. Wolfgang Kemp's biography - the first properly conceptual biography of its subject - at last makes sense of what Ruskin was saying. With perception and lucidity, and largely by allowing Ruskin to speak for himself, Kemp demonstrates how Ruskin's whole life was founded on his early visits to the Continent with his parents, and on the theories of nature which he worked out there. From these he derived his beliefs about art and beauty, and from these in turn his ideas about craftsmanship, his philosophy of work and the social order. It was this last which won him the affection of thousands of working men and women and which - though he often proclaimed himself a high Tory - furnished Britain's first socialists with their spiritual armour. It is simply one of the contradicitons with which the life of the frenzied man was overlaid. Kemp shows how all things were part of a whole, and from this book Ruskin's passions for nature, art and ultimately for living rightly emerge fresh and overwhelming.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780002151665
ISBN 10 0002151669
Title The Desire of My Eyes
Author Wolfgang Kemp
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Hardback
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Year published 1991-03-21
Number of pages 544
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.