“Although Ruskin was generally wary of the changes transforming nineteenth-century commerce, those same changes helped create a class of tourists who became a core audience for his books. “There is nothing that I tell you with more eager desire that you should believe . . . than this,” he once told a lecture audience, “that you will never love art well, till you love what she mirrors better.” What Ruskin seems to be saying is that a painting or piece of sculpture should be tested against the landscape and culture it’s intended to represent. That idea resonated with nineteenth-century readers, who were increasingly able not only to see the art of places like Venice in museums, but to visit these destinations.”
“John Ruskin Taught Victorian Readers and Travelers the Art of Cultivation,”
by Danny Heitman, Humanities, Winter 2017

Consider how this quote engages in a discussion of art and reality. What is Ruskin saying? How can you apply that to the short story, essay, or excerpt of graphic memoir that you will use as your primary source? Respond to the above quote by focusing on the way that your primary text employs a (meaning one) specific theme and culture.

Your two (2) additional secondary sources will help develop your response to the quote. One source will define and support how you have defined and argued culture within the primary source. The other will support how you have defined and argued theme within your primary source. Please stick to a +/- 10-15 year window for your secondary sources—this means plus or minus the year of the work’s publication, or -15 years from now. Consider how the news articles anchored your definition of culture in the individual research essay assignment.

Evaluation of this task will be based on your ability to closely analyze and interpret the meaningfulness the above quote through its application to your primary text (which includes a discussion of the primary text’s theme and  All steps of this assignment should be completed and turned in by their due dates.