Revisioning Ruskin: the Art of Scientific Innovation

This collaborative research programme repositions Ruskin’s works in the context of scientific innovation through a series of exhibitions, publications and related events.

Scientific innovation and technical advance were part of Ruskin’s tool-kit for discovery. His works and collections evidence a lifelong fascination in the composition and qualities of natural phenomena including clouds, geological strata and shells. His analysis, centred in an alert practice of close observation, was aided by instruments such as the cyanometer, microscope, telescope and camera. Ruskin participated in the networks driving scientific and technological innovation in nineteenth-century London, while nurturing the nation’s curiosity through his many gifts of natural science and science illustration collections in his lifetime.

‘Revisioning Ruskin’ places Ruskin alongside his nineteenth-century scientific contemporaries, exploring his influence on science and society, in his time and our own. The project to-date has included five on-site exhibitions in London and Cumbria, five digital exhibitions, and exhibition catalogues, leaflets, publications and short research articles on the Royal Society’s History of Science Blog.

Project Lead: Professor Sandra Kemp, The Ruskin