Modern Painters

Ruskin, the Victorian-era British writer whose work had a profound influence on artists, art historians, and writers both during his life and after, wrote Modern Painters in five separate volumes published between 1843 and 1860. It is, among other things, an evaluation of individual painters, a religious statement, a discourse on nature, and a splendid example of Victorian prose style. The original text has been abridged into this one-volume edition, which preserves the essential points of Ruskin's argument and provides the modern reader with a satisfying sample of Ruskin's justly acclaimed prose.