John Ruskin's 'The King of the Golden River'

the Seven Lamps of Architecture. These attempted to demonstrate that the only true beauty was that which expressed a man’s individuality and joy in labour. The mundane perfection offered by the Classical system reduced its workers to mindless builders and, therefore, lacked true beauty, whilst the Gothic system, at least for Ruskin, enabled them to glory in their human imperfection. This element of imperfection, reflecting true individuality, may be seen in King of the Golden River. An exploration of Ruskin’s construct of nature within this work suggests that its writing was not only influenced by the later landscapes of Turner; Ruskin’s representation of nature also verges on the grotesque as it offers a distorted perception of reality in order to relay its moral lessons and symbolises the raw power of man’s physical world and, as illustrated in The King of the Golden River, is seen as imperfect and symbolic of our relationship with our world and, ultimately, with God.

The next instalment discusses Ruskin’s criticism of Turner’s work. ___________ Notes: Charles Dickens, Four Great Novels, (Parragon: London, 1995), 546. ET Cook and Wedderburn, ed. The Works of John Ruskin, (George Allen: London, 1904), 35.303. Ibid. Ibid. 35. 304. Ibid. Ibid. Joan Abse, John Ruskin: the Passionate Moralist, (Quartet Books: London, 1980), 50. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid Abse, 51 Abse, 53 Ibid Abse, 54 Tim Hilton, John Ruskin: the Early Years 1819-1859, (Yale University Press: London, 1985), 62. Ibid. Abse, 54. Ibid. George Landow, Ruskin, (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1985), 93. Clive Wilmer ed., Unto this Last and Other Writings, (Penguin: London, 1997), 47. See Appendix A. See Appendix B.

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