Revisioning Ruskin: the Art of Scientific Innovation

Project Lead: Professor Sandra Kemp

‘Revisioning Ruskin’ is a programme to reposition Ruskin’s works in the context of scientific innovation through a portfolio of research, exhibitions and events.

Revisioning Ruskin

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 resulted in a collaborative partnership with the Royal Society, developing the pilot digital exhibition, Painting with Sunlight, as part of the Royal Society Summer Show in 2021 and the exhibition series, John Ruskin in the Age of Science. The series consisted placed Ruskin alongside his nineteenth-century scientific contemporaries, exploring his influence on science and society, in his time and our own. The series comprised of 5 on-site exhibitions, 5 digital exhibitions, 2 exhibition catalogues, 4 exhibition guides and short research articles on the Royal Society’s History of Science Blog.