John Ruskin: A Life in Pictures

"It really is. What I find so extraordinary about it is all you learn from it, almost incidentally, from the detailed commentary, which seems to flow out so serendipitously. When I was first given a spare copy of this book in Sheffield—it had been out of print for years—I thought at first that it didn’t sound very interesting. But in fact, when I began to read it, and subsequently got in touch with James Dearden himself – he’s still very much alive, living on the Isle of Wight—I found him to be a veritable encyclopedia of Ruskiniana. Everything tumbles out of him. When I asked him whether he knew anything about Ruskin’s visits to Sheffield, he immediately said, ‘well I do know that he was in touch with Councillor Bragge in 1875′. That was immediate and quite spontaneous. James gave me a tremendous amount of help with my research into Ruskin in Sheffield in particular. My contribution to the Ruskin in Sheffield catalogue was to write an essay about Ruskin’s engagements with Sheffield, which I was delighted to do as I’m a Sheffielder myself. A Life in Pictures is also an extraordinarily wacky biography as well. What James did through sometimes bizarre and manifold researches, was to reveal to us the nature of Ruskin’s interest in his own self-portraiture. This all is absolutely fascinating and really delightful, right down to those minute descriptions of his teeth and his fingernails. He brings everything about the man alive so well. And his clothing gets close treatment. Ruskin was very particular about his own appearance, and he would be dismayed to find himself portrayed in ways which he did not find flattering. The book is like stepping into a period costume drama. It’s wonderful. Take for example a passage where Ruskin is in despair in old age. The photographer has just left, and Ruskin, having examined the outcome, remarks: I’m an orangutan again. I would give up half my books for a decent profile. James Dearden reveals these extraordinary, delightfully personal things about the man himself, and you wouldn’t expect to go to this book to find them. None of the books I found particularly influential are the regular places you’d think to go to find interesting and insightful information, not necessarily."