Ruskin Aesthetic Thought Religious Outlook

This dissertation looks into John Ruskin's religious views in and their impact on his aesthetic ideas and tries to discuss with particular reference from two scopes, namely his aesthetic ideas in painting and those in architecture.On the one hand, Ruskin emphasizes that God created the universe and all things. He is the source of all forms of beauty. Human beings, as the highest of His earthly creatures, must love Him and obey Him. They must take Him as the ultimate Beauty, Truth, and Goodness. Ruskin argues that the principal role of the artists is "truth to nature". They should imitate from God's creation, Nature. On the other hand, Ruskin attaches great importance to originality, creativity, imagination, and initiative of human beings. During art creating, they should not only imitate from Nature, but also invest their own interpretations and give full scope to their creativities. Further, Ruskin's morality is also inseparable from his aesthetic thoughts just as his religious views are. To him, all great art is "the expression of the spirits of great men". Only the morally and spiritually healthy are capable of admiring the noble and the beautiful, and transforming them into great arts by imaginatively penetrating their essence.With regard to his aesthetic ideas in painting, Ruskin deems that Typical Beauty is "the symbolizing of divine attributes in matter" and Vital Beauty is "the beauty of living things", embodied in their happiness in the lives given by God and their fulfillment in their own functions by Him. Each species has its God-given ends and each creature performs its natural and moral functions contentedly. Vital Beauty of human beings is reflected in their moral pursuits and all healthy emotions. During this stage, Ruskin's interest has gradually shifted in emphasis from a theocentric aestheticism to a deep probe of human beings as self-contained thinking and creating beings.Ruskin's aesthetic ideas in architecture are somewhat condensed in the seven lamps or seven canons in architecture art. These lamps include that of Sacrifice, of Truth, of Power, of Beauty, of Life, of Memory, and of Obedience. In Lamps of Sacrifice and Beauty, he still mentions God's role in human art. Early human architectures took shape from their offerings to God. Therefore the artists are required to maintain same devotional mind in architectural creations. With regard to forms of architecture, the architects should also imitate from the forms of Beauty embodying divine attributes in Nature. However, in the Lamps of Truth, Power, Life, Memory, and Obedience, Ruskin has turned to several aspects closely associated with the artist himself including his own creativity and emotion, his moral pursuits, the social system in which he creates, how to pass down history, and how to deal with the laws. From this, it can be seen that Ruskin's focus has already turned to the earthly world where human beings live and create art, leaving Heaven and God behind, but never in oblivion.During the research process, I make a close-reading of Ruskin's writings, analyze relating works of art, and examine the changes of his religious beliefs. Besides, I also apply to historic context study, hermeneutic interpretation, and comparative analysis. All these approaches push the theoretical explorations to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.