The preeminent art critic of Victorian England, John Ruskin elevated a personal and sentimental response to art into a manifesto against modernity. Like the poet Wordsworth, whom he greatly admired, Ruskin found in nature the stimulus to an untapped repository of emotion. He admired art that reflecte

Classical, Sincere, Sophisticated, Witty

Gustav Stickley was born in Osceola, Wisconsin, in 1858 and began to train with his father in stonemasonry and woodworking at the age of 12. At 18 he became an apprentice in his uncle's Pennsylvania factory, where he produced chairs and caned seats. He and two of his brothers, all educated in the fam

Arts & crafts furniture, Clean, Elegant, Minimal, Organic, Sincere

The period between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, though a time of cultural ferment in the former colonies, was marked by an identity crisis. It was a time when the country was young and the influence of European art and philosophy was strong. The most praised writers were sycophants: Cooper wrote

Ecstatic, Elegant, Pathos, Pioneering, Sincere, Transcendentalism, Witty

Many contemporary editions of St. Augustine's "Confessions" end with Chapter Ten on the grounds that what follows is uninteresting; uninteresting, publishers contend, because 'Confessions' is supposed to be juicy biography, not philosophy. The sins -- the thieving (in one scene, he even pilfers fruit

Classical & biblical literature, Contemplative, Elegant, Religious, Sincere