Dave Hickey.

Tim Hilton's John Ruskin: The Later Years (Yale University Press), together with The Early Years (1985), seems to me the model biography of a cultural figure. The book is fluid for all its length, judicious about a notoriously fractious subject, and unpretentiously literate throughout. Hilton recounts the events of Ruskin's life straight through, in one- and two-year increments, digressing when necessary and referencing forward and backward when appropriate. Far from a mere recounting, however, the book is suffused with Hilton's intimate knowledge of Ruskin's enormous production, so at every point the narrative is telling us something we need to know--about the life to appreciate the work, about the work to appreciate the life, or about the culture to appreciate them both. Taken together, Hilton's two volumes constitute an amazingly organic achievement, a triumphant telling of one of saddest stories ever told.

Dave Hickey, an art critic who lives in Las Vegas, is currently organizing SITE Santa Fe's Fourth International Biennial, "Beau Monde: Toward a Redeemed Cosmopolitanism," which opens its July 2001.