Ruskin's Artists

Published in the centenary year of the greatest writer on art, culture and society that this country has produced, this study of John Ruskin's engagement with art and architecture as a critic, a patron and a teacher offers fresh insights into both his writings, and into the visual economy of the Victorian world. Each essay examines Ruskin's relationship with an individual artist or a distinct aspect of art practice. J.M.W. Turner, D.G. Rossetti, W. Holman Hunt and E. Burne-Jones are among those artists discussed whose personal relationships with Ruskin affected his critical writing. Ruskin's attitude to women artists and his approach to the teaching of art are given special attention. Ruskin's Artists is edited by Robert Hewison, Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford in the year 2000, and curator of the Tate Gallery's exhibition 'Ruskin, Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites', to which this is a companion EDITION. Contents: Introduction, Father and son: the Ruskin family art collection, Robert Hewison; `Candid and earnest': the rise of the art critic in the early nineteenth century, Claire Wildsmith; The `dark clue' and the Law of Help: Ruskin, Turner, and The Liber Studiorum, Alan Davis; Ruskin and the Gothic Revival: his research on Venetian Architecture, Robert Hewison; Ruskin and Millais at Glenfinlas, Alastair Grieve; Pre-Raphaelite intimacy: Ruskin and Rosetti, Elizabeth Helsinger; The Light of the World as `true sacred art': Ruskin and William Holman Hunt, Michael Wheeler; Archangel Veronese: Ruskin as Protestant spectator, Andrew Tate; `According to the requirements of is scholars': Ruskin, drawing and art education, Ray Haslam; The `woman question': Ruskin and the female artist, Pamela Gerrish Nunn; Ruskin and the PreRaphaelite imagination in the 1870s: art, politics and the female body, Francis O'Gorman; Painter and professor: the response of Albert Goodwin to the aesthetics of John Ruskin; David Wootton; The critic as autobiographer: Ruskin and his artists, Dinah Birch; Bibliography; Index.