Episode 46. John Ruskin and the Guild of St George

SYNOPSIS

Amateur geologist, watercolourist, art critic and philanthropist, champion of Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites, lecturer, the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University, exponent of Gothic architecture, and profound social critic, the 19c polymath, John Ruskin (1890-1900) was one of the most influential Victorian thinkers. Establishing himself in his twenties as a profoundly original art critic, Ruskin posited a link between a society’s art and culture and its social and political virtues or vices, before developing a savage critique of rampant, British laissez-faire capitalism.  

Ruskin’s Unto This Last (1860-63) in which he famously wrote that “There is no wealth but life” contained an informal manifesto suggesting that those individuals who had established some control over their own affairs should then extend their influence and wealth in the service of others. The Guild of St George was set up in 1871 to encourage such capable idealists, to be known as Companions, to join him in the battle to lance the dragon of industrial capitalism.

Ruskin envisaged a hierarchical organization comprised of agricultural craft communities run on ethically and environmentally sound lines, producing high quality necessities, and in time generating their own schools, museums, currency and dress. The Guild fell foul of Ruskin’s autocratic irascibility and ill-health, but key elements of his vision have survived into the twenty-first century and his ideas have kept their relevance to a different modern context.

GUESTS

Dr Mark is Associate Professor of Literature and the Environment at the University of Portsmouth. He is a Companion of the Guild of St George, his interest in John Ruskin being piqued by the quality of the Victorian visionary’s writing about trees. His 2014 book, The Lost Companions and John Ruskin’s Guild of St George. developed from the discovery of historic papers which brought to light how Ruskin had interacted with ordinary, working-class Companions and volunteers on the agricultural settlements of the Guild.

Further information upon the current activities of the Guild of St George and its Companions at its website

https://www.guildofstgeorge.org.uk/

Simon’s interview with Mark Frost was recorded in Southsea, Portsmouth on 27 May 2024.