"Literary Links" is a series of posts celebrating
Britain's wonderful links with great authors, dramatists and poets.
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
attended Christ Church College, Oxford as an undergraduate and like many of his fellow students
came from a privileged background. He
showed early signs of talent even before he arrived here.
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| Christ Church College, Oxford |
His influence was enormous.
He became an accomplished poet, writer, artist and critic and an
invaluable patron to the arts. His
thoughts on social issues were often ahead of their time and continue to
inspire today. For instance, his book Unto This Last (1860) inspired
Mahatma Gandhi who said, “I determined to change my life in the light of this
book. My belief is that I discovered
some of my deepest convictions reflected in this great book of Ruskin’s…”
Ruskin was a generous benefactor to Oxford and founded The
Ruskin School of Drawing in 1871 using the rooms and art in the Ashmolean
Museum. It continued there for a century
where it was renamed The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in 1945. In 1975 it found its new home here on the
corner of the High Street and Merton Street.
In 2014 it became known as the Ruskin School of Art.
This
is an excerpt from the tour Oxford’s Noble and Great Ones - Part
1 which explores around the southern part of Oxford.
The full tour is found on www.obelisktours.co.uk
