John Ruskin (1819-1900) is an important and much-neglected philosopher by Rightists. A huge influence on the Pre-Raphaelites, he was concerned largely with the philosophy of art from a Rightist viewpoint and in a practical sense in its effects upon civilization and society. One of the most neglected subjects in art in the contemporary age is aesthetics, and Ruskin's essays provide a great insight into why aesthetics is important and why the Left so wishes to debase that which is beautiful. Here, he refers to the "false Puritans", just as I have referred to Leftism as the Puritanism of Perversity, especially in the anti-art of Marina Abramovich. I, of course, do not share his opinion on the good moralising effect of Christianity, but he is correct in that modernity and wealth has brought brokenness and corruption, and that the moral state of society is reflected in its art, just as he is correct that "the truly great nations nearly always begin from a race possessing this imaginative power". An accomplished artist himself, I have interspersed the essay with a few of his works.
