![]() The city was full of craftsmen and revolutionaries so the site was well chosen. This ability to look was something that he wanted everybody- however disadvantaged they were- to have and he established a museum, a single room on one of the Sheffield hills, so that workers could be raised up out of their dreadful living conditions for just a short while- all the time they had- and be shown how to look at beauty. The truth was out there if he looked hard enough. Young people should “set themselves to grow in a carrotty or turnippy manner, and lay up secret store, not caring to exhibit it until the time comes for fruitful display.” He educated himself through active observation and questioning rather than getting involved in the fierce debate popular at the time. He really believed that the act of making art could lead to someone becoming not just a better artist but a better and happier person and that anyone looking at the work afterwards would have these benefits passed on to them. ![]() Instead he lectured on ideas of reform, identity, economy and passion. When he took up his post as the first professor of fine art at the Slade in 1870 he informed his listeners- a group of affluent, athletic students who included Oscar Wilde- that anyone wishing to be a fine painter had come to the wrong place. “I have to draw a peacock’s breast feather, and paint as much of it (as) I can, without having heaven to dip my brush into.” Watercolour on paper, 1873 Collection of the Guild of St George, Museums Sheffield Study of a Peacock’s Breast Feather John Ruskin (1819-1900). ![]()
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