1819 John Ruskin is born in London on 8 February to John James and Margaret Cox Ruskin.
1836 Resides in Oxford, accompanied by his mother, until 1840. Publishes a series of articles entitled 'The Poetry of Architecture' in the Architectural Magazine (1837-8).
1839 Wins the Newdigate Prize for poetry at Oxford with Salsette and Elephanta. Meets Wordsworth.
1840 First meets Turner. Falls ill, possibly with consumption, and leaves Oxford for a foreign tour with parents which lasts from September until June. Meets Georgianna Tollemache, later Lady Mount-Temple, who remains one of his closest friends.
1841 Writes The King of the Golden River for Euphemia Chalmers Gray, whom he marries in 1848.
1842 Takes BA at Oxford and abandons idea of taking holy orders. Begins Modern Painters.
1843 Publishes first volume of Modern Painters anonymously in May.
1844 Revises Modern Painters I, deleting much of its polemics. Reads A. F. Rio's La Poésie de l'art chrétienne and continues studies of botany and geology. Purchases Turner's The Slave Ship.
1846 Publishes Modern Painters, Volume II, which marks a new departure in his thought.
1847 Reviews Lord Lindsay's Sketches of the History of Christian Art in the June Quarterly Review. Unknown to Ruskin, Modern Painters II inspires William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti to emulate Tintoretto's fusions of visual realism and elaborate symbolism.[92/93]
1848 Marries Euphemia Chalmers Gray, a distant cousin, on 10 April, after which he and his wife tour Normandy. Studies Gothic architecture.
1849 Publishes The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Works in Venice studying the city's architecture and history from November until March 1850.
1850 Publishes collected Poems and The King of the Golden River, which is, however, dated the following year.
1851 Publishes the first volume of The Stones of Venice, "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds", and Pre-Raphaelitism. Defends Hunt and Millais in letters to The Times after Coventry Patmore points out their work to him. Meets Millais, Rossetti, Hunt, and other members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle. Works in Venice from September until June 1852 on The Stones of Venice. Turner dies, having made Ruskin a trustee of his will.
1853 The second and third volumes of The Stones of Venice are published. Travels with wife, Millais, and Millais's brother in Scottish Highlands.
1854 Marriage annulled on grounds of non-consummation. (The following year Effie marries Millais.) Begins lecturing on art at the newly founded Working Men's College and becomes friendly with D. G. Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddall. Writes letters to The Times defending Pre-Raphaelite painting. Publishes Lectures on Art and Architecture delivered in Edinburgh the previous year.
1855 Begins Academy Notes, annual reviews of the June Royal Academy exhibition which continue until 1859 (with a single issue in 1875). Meets Tennyson.
1856 Publishes the third and fourth volumes of Modern Painters, which concern the rise of Romantic art and attitudes towards landscape. Meets Charles Eliot Norton, his American friend, disciple, and popularizer.[93/94]
1857 Publishes The Elements of Drawing and The Political Economy of Art. Lectures extensively and studies works in Turner bequest.
1858 Meets and falls in love with Rose La Touche. Decisively abandons his Protestant religious faith in Turin.
1860 Completes the final volume of Modern Painters and publishes political and social criticism in the Cornhill Magazine, but protests by readers prompt Thackeray, the editor, to limit Ruskin to four articles later published as Unto This Last (1862).
1862 Publishes "Essays on Political Economy" in Fraser's Magazine (1862-3); these are published in book form as Munera Pulveris in 1872.
1864 Ruskin's father dies on 2 March and leaves him considerable wealth. Writes and delivers "Traffic" and "Of King's Treasuries".
1865 Publishes Sesame and Lilies.
1866 Publishes The Crown of Wild Olive and The Ethics of the Dust, this last work a series of dialogues with children explaining geology based upon his occasional teaching at the Winnington School — Ruskin's proposal of marriage to Rose La Touche begins a decade of frustration and emotional turmoil.
1867 Publishes Time and Tide, letters to a British labourer about social and political issues. Becomes friendly with the social worker Octavia Hill.
1869 Publishes The Queen of the Air, a study of Greek myth which expands ideas found in the closing volumes of Modern Painters. Appointed the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford.
1871 Purchases Brantwood near Coniston in the Lake District from the radical W. J. Linton. Undertakes social experiments including street sweeping in London and road mending in Oxford. Begins publication of Fors Clavigera, which continues in monthly parts until [94/95] 1878, after which it appears intermittently. Is seriously ill, with mental and physical illnesses, at Matlock. Mother dies 5 December.
1875 Rose dies, insane, at age twenty-seven.
1878 Founds the Guild of St. George. Suspends Fors after an attack of madness in the spring and is unable to testify in Whistler v. Ruskin in November.
1879 Resigns Slade Professorship at Oxford, in large part because of Whistler v. Ruskin.
1880 Recovering from attacks of madness, he resumes Fors and begins "Fiction, Fair and Foul", a series that appears intermittently in the Nineteenth Century until October 1881. Publishes A Joy For Ever, an expanded version of The Political Economy of Art (1857).
1883 Resumes Professorship at Oxford after re-election and lectures on The Art of England, which contains extensive comments on Hunt, Rossetti, Burne-jones, and other Victorian artists.
1884 Delivers "The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century" as a lecture at the London Institution and begins to publish the Oxford lectures entitled The Pleasures of England. Publishes The Art of England in book form. Frequently experiences mental turmoil.
1885 Continues publication of The Pleasures of England and publishes Praeterita, his autobiography, which appeared intermittently in parts until July 1889. Mental illness forces temporary cessation of writing.
1886 Suffers attacks of mental illness.
1900 Dies of influenza on 20 January and is buried in Coniston churchyard.[95/96]
Last modified 2 January 2024