Ruskin: Museum of the Near Future

1. To see clearly

'There is no wealth but life'

Ruskin’s large-scale lecture diagrams, produced as visual aids for his popular public lectures, are seen alongside closely observed studies of form in nature, from the filament of a thistle or barb of a peacock’s feather, to the branch of a tree or bird’s wing.

Sketches, paintings and diagrams reveal his playful but informative oscillation between micro and macro scales of perception.

2. Understand the nature of things

'The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace.'

Ruskin was a renowned teacher, lecturer and public intellectual, and he campaigned for education for all. His social project, The Guild of St George, and the teaching collections he established at Sheffield, Oxford and Coniston are testaments to Ruskin’s vision for beauty and learning within the pulse of everyday life.

‘That you should be able to ask a question clearly, is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.’

3. Know the part things play

‘Science does its duty, not in telling us the causes of the spots in the sun; but in explaining to us the laws of our own life, and the consequences of their violation.’

Ruskin's motto was ‘Today’.

He believed that the way we see things now will shape the way we think and behave in the future. His concerns about the impact of industrialisation on the health of the planet speak powerfully to our own era.

'...to preserve something like a true image of beautiful things that pass away, or which you must yourself leave.'

1. Let nature be your teacher

‘The artist is a telescope – very marvellous in himself, as an instrument. But I think, on the whole, the stars are the principal part of the affair.’

We are instinctively drawn to those geological transformations of the earth which reflect our values. The clearer we see the world, the greater our empathy and the clearer we see that life itself and human happiness arise when processes of disintegration give way to periods of composition.

'...the chief masters of the human imagination owed, and confessed that they owed, the force of their noblest thoughts, ... to the flying cloud.'

2. Think with enduring values, not of enduring things

‘When we build, let us think that we build for ever.’

Architecture is a social question. The same energy and material wealth creates a Venice or a Manchester. Different values create different results.

'To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.'

3. Take heart

‘What is best to be done, do you ask me? The answer is plain. Whether you can affect the signs of the sky or not, you can the signs of the times.’

Ours is a great responsibility. In both knowledge and ignorance lie life-giving choices. What lies in our hearts is everything. We give value to life.