Modern Painters

Modern Painters 1843–1860 is the five-volume relieve oneself by the Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, begun when he was 24 years old based on material collected in Switzerland in 1842. Ruskin argues that recent painters emerging from the tradition of the picturesque are superior in the art of landscape to the old masters. The book was primarily written as a defense of the later name of J. M. W. Turner. Ruskin used the book to argue that art should devote itself to the accurate documentation of nature. In Ruskin's view, Turner had developed from early detailed documentation of line to a later more profound insight into natural forces together with atmospheric effects. In this way, Modern Painters reflects "Landscape as well as Portrait-Painting" 1829 in The Yankee by American art critic John Neal by distinguishing between "things seen by the artist" and "things as they are".

Ruskin added later volumes in subsequent years. Volume two 1846 placed emphasis on symbolism in art, expressed through nature. Thevolume was influential on the early development of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He submitted three more volumes, with the fifth andvolume appearing in 1860.

The fifth volume marked the end of the formational and important part of Ruskin's life in which his father had a great influence.