Quite
agree with Whitespike & Lunchbox
The quote IS silly
What does he even mean when he says 'colour'?
Perhaps the first instinct is to think bright colour..saturated colour- but there is nothing there to say that is the case- so it is wide open to any interpretation of 'colour'- already any possible meaning or gravitas is dissipated to the extent it becomes..well, meaningless.
Colour is everywhere..no-one craves a colourless existence, yet each may have their favourites- colour has no intellectual hierarchy.
I am reluctant to even touch on the 'purity' angle..Ruskin was a man so appalled by the first sight of his naked wife's body that their marriage was never consumated..
Ol' Johnnie Rusk had his share of pecadilloes...
That's for sure. As I let Lunchbox in on, he was also intermittently broken down mentally.
But I submit that one is unwise to reject the remarks and/or work of a man or woman based simply on their infirmities and pecadilloes.
If we all did so, I reckon we would all still be living short lives in thatched huts and relying on hunter gather techniques for our survival...and still have a tribe full of persons with infirmities and pecadilloes but without Eames chairs! 🙂
I mean, who wants to reject good old Starry Night just because Vinnie sought some aural asymmetry with a kitchen knife?
Mozart was crazy as a loon.
Nietzche, well, I don't need to master the obvious there.
I just think a bunch of designers ought to give old Johnnie Rusk a fair listen. I'm not insisting you agree with either of his quotes, but I think we can "trust" that the man was a towering intellect and realistically dispense with him not being just a fruit cake.
No less of men than Frank Lloyd Wright and Ghandi referred to Ruskin as among the greatest intellectual influences in their lives.
Yes, Ruskin in some ways, paved the way for modernity, though I doubt that he did what he did in order for collectors of the modern to have some thing modern to collect. 🙂
Johnnie Rusk may have been dead wrong on these epigrams, but as they are often listed among memorable, or otherwise significant quotations, perhaps some might find it worth the risk of a little further reflection on the short chance that you have short-changed one of the ancestors of the modern.
But perhaps not.
He's dead.
What has he done for us lately, right? 😉
I don't disqualify him on...
The thing in question was this specific quote, not the man himself. Honestly, I don't know enough about him to qualify or disqualify him as a person. Apparently, you know a thing or two about him, and I believe you to be a smart guy. I will trust that he is a very intelligent and influential man.
I would like to ask again: Did Ruskin ever expound on this quote? I would love to give this quote a chance, but if it is only as deep as this one vague sentence I think I've heard enough to form my opinion (of this quote).
Whitespike
The Wikipedia entry for Ruskin is actually very good and detailed - well worth a read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ruskin
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