John Dixon Hunt is Emeritus Professor of the History and Theory of Landscape at the University of Pennsylvania. His many books include Historical Ground (2014) and The Art of Ruskin and the Spirit of Place (Reaktion, 2020).

Ruskin Society Book Prize 2021 - WinnerJohn Dixon contends that, far from being mere illustrations to his writings, Ruskin’s drawings were the first necessary step in his approach to beauty, words coming second. The aim of the book is to examine how Ruskin saw things, how he learnt to look at places, in particular, and how to represent them. - CerclesThis beautifully produced book takes readers on a closely and sensitively observed grand tour of Ruskin’s pictorial imagination. In a moving return to an early subject, John Dixon Hunt supplies this bibliographic equivalent of Ruskin’s restless journeying, a visual odyssey in honour not only of the places he cared about, but also of his sense of place, understood physically, emotionally, spiritually, chromatically. The images reproduced here are more than illustrations: thanks to Hunt’s hospitality and judgement as a guide, they take their place as staging-posts along a beguiling travellers’ road. - Dr Marcus Waithe, University Senior Lecturer, Magdalene College, Cambridge