Ruskin’s God

Michael Wheeler challenges critical orthodoxy by arguing that John Ruskin’s writing is underpinned by a sustained trust in divine wisdom: a trust nurtured by his imaginative engagement with King Solomon and the temple in Jerusalem, and with the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. In Modern Painters, The Seven Lamps of Architecture and The Stones of Venice, belief in the wisdom of God the Father informed Ruskin’s Evangelical natural theology and his celebration of Turner’s landscape painting, while the wisdom of God the Son lay at the heart of his Christian aesthetics. Whereas ‘the author of Modern Painters’ sought to teach his readers how to see architecture, paintings and landscapes, the ‘Victorian Solomon’ whose religious life was troubled, and who created various forms of modern wisdom literature in works such as Unto this Last, The Queen of the Air and Fors Clavigera, wished to teach them how to live.

• First full-length study of Ruskin’s religion, essential for anyone studying Ruskin and his influence on nineteenth-century literature and culture • First major book to draw on vast Ruskin archive now collected at Lancaster University

List of plates; Preface; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction: ‘To enlighten a People by your Wisdom’: the divine commission; Part I. The author of Modern Painters: 2. ‘The Shechinah of the blue’: in God’s temple; 3. ‘The Peace of God’ and a Christian theory of art; 4. ‘The Book-Temple’: a Protestant beholder of St Mark’s; 5. ‘True sacred art’ and Christ the great high priest; 6. Solomon’s ‘Christian royalty’: a rite of passage in Turin; Part II. Victorian Solomon: 7. Solomon’s ‘maxims concerning wealth’; 8. Science, myth and a creative wisdom; 9. St George, St Francis and the rule of love and wisdom; 10. Fragments of Christendom in Venice and Amiens; 11. The ‘visible Heaven’ and apocalyptic wisdom; Appendix; Index.

‘Much the most important of the newer critical studies.’ Clive Wilmer, The Times Literary Supplement

‘A timely reminder of a Ruskin who has been to some degree neglected.’ J R Watson, Expository Times

‘Wheeler’s thorough knowledge of Victorian theology lends authority to Ruskin\'s God, not only as a comprehensive treatment of Ruskin’s religious thought, but also as a resource for further scholarship on Victorian literature and religion. ’ David Hanson, Modern Philology

‘A learned, heavily footnoted monograph that probes Ruskin’s developing attitudes towards religion and myth. ’ Asa Briggs, The Times Higher Education Supplement

‘A scholarly tour de force.’ Peter Stiles, Christianity and Literature