Originally published in "Cornhill" magazine in 1860, "Unto This Last" is a series of four essays on the politics of economics and capitalism by the prominent English art critic of the Victorian era John Ruskin. While Ruskin was most well-known for his writings on art, he was also an accomplished painter and an influential social philosopher and philanthropist. Considered by Ruskin himself as one of his most important works, the ideas introduced in...

Excerpt: "My dear Reader,-Whether this book is to be of use to you or not, depends wholly on your reason for wishing to learn to draw. If you desire only to possess a graceful accomplishment, to be able to converse in a fluent manner about drawing, or to amuse yourself listlessly in listless hours, I cannot help you: but if you wish to learn drawing that you may be able to set down clearly, and usefully, records of such things as cannot be described...

In 1869 Ruskin was appointed the Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford. His inaugural lectures, delivered between February 8th and March 23rd of 1870, focused on the limits and elementary practice of art, and were published in book form later that year. In the lectures, Ruskin offers his keen insights on art and its relation to religion, morality, and every day life, as well as a detailed analysis on the meaning of line, light, and color. Ruskin later...