Ruskin: Museum of the Near Future
Ruskin: Museum of the Near Future invites you to reflect on how life takes shape and where tomorrow’s world is today.
Our most ambitious capital project since The Ruskin opened will make our collection, programme and research accessible to more people, in our iconic building.
While The Ruskin building is closed, follow the redevelopment project here until the museum reopens in 2024.
While The Ruskin building is closed, see the collection in London and Lancaster.
John Ruskin in the Age of Science is a programme of temporary exhibitions showcasing The Ruskin’s collections at Brantwood, Ruskin’s house in the Lake District, and at the Royal Society, London.
For more information visit Brantwood webpage
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EventsExplore the art and ideas of John Ruskin, writer, artist and radical thinker. While we are closed for refurbishment, works from our collection are on display in London and the Lake District.
John Ruskin in the Age of Science is a series of three exhibitions at Brantwood, Ruskin’s former home on Coniston Water, and at the Royal Society, London, from April to December 2022.
4 Oct. - 9 Dec. 2022, The Royal Society, London | 26 Oct. - 31 Dec. 2022, Blue Gallery, Brantwood
An exhibition across two sites
From the telescope to early forms of photography, Ruskin exploited developments in optical technologies to push the boundaries of recording the world with extreme visual clarity. Across two sites, this exhibition explores observation and evidence in Ruskin’s works, alongside his scientific contemporaries.
Blue Gallery, Brantwood | 22 July - 25 September
Ruskin was fascinated by form and pattern, proportion and symmetry, in the world around us. This exhibition drew on a cultural history of maths to explore nineteenth century scientific ideas about the relationship of things and their properties to each other.
Explore Ruskin's Perspectives: The Art of Abstraction exhibition catalogue.
22 April – 26 June 2022, Blue Gallery, Brantwood
A lifetime of observing the skies led John Ruskin to conclude that human activities were damaging the environment. This exhibition explored how Ruskin’s analysis paralleled the evolution of climate science, and shaped his contribution to defining the Anthropocene: the world we have made.
Explore The Skies are for All: Ruskin and Climate Change exhibition catalogue.
Ruskin: Museum of the Near Future invites you to reflect on how life takes shape and where tomorrow’s world is today.
More News
Curated with the Royal Society, explore the history of the Royal Society Soirées
With Lancaster City Museums, Peter Scott Gallery and Lancaster Castle
The nineteenth century was one of the great ages of collectors and explorers. For Ruskin’s fascination with the fabric of the earth, see Miniature Mountains https://t.co/RiUDFkvdXI @royalsociety @RuskinsFriends #johnruskin @RuskinToday @SheffMuseums #theroyalsociety #Geology https://t.co/ukv4F7UDaL
‘I well remember the intense mortification of first looking down on the dirt bands of the Mer de Glace (…) That we never should have seen them before! (...) so inevitable now’ (LE 27 1907, 639) @royalsociety #johnruskin #daguerreotype #climatechange #glacier #lancasteruniversity https://t.co/G2GwtTP7Oc
Professor Sandra Kemp discusses her new exhibition at the Royal Society which places the work of John Ruskin in the context of developments in science and photography: John Ruskin and ‘heart-sight’ https://t.co/M1MwMoefkD #johnruskin #science #sight #lancasteruniversity #geology https://t.co/cb5F0kJ69D
‘John Ruskin and The Science of Sight’ at the Royal Society 19th century new optical devices that challenged the authority of the image and kinds of image that could serve as scientific standards. @royalsociety @guildofstgeorge @RuskinToday @SheffMuseums https://t.co/3qCJrYWJ3u https://t.co/9tfUtwUW1T