English author, art critic and artist. John Ruskin had a profound influence on Victorian taste throughout the English-speaking world. His worldview was shaped by The Bible and Geology. In The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1849, John Ruskin wrote 'I do not mean to assert that every happy arrangement of line is directly suggested by a natural object; but that all beautiful lines are adaptations of those which are commonest in the external creation'. J C Loudon recognised the teenage John Ruskin as the 'greatest natural genuis that ever it has been my fortune to become acquainted with'. F L Olmsted was also a great admirer of Ruskin, as were Jekyll, Lutyens, Morris and the Arts and Crafts designers.
Gardens designed by Ruskin, John