Ruskin's Artists Studies in the Victorian Visual Economy

This was first published in 2000: A study of John Ruskin's engagement with art and architecture as a critic, a patron and a teacher. It offers insights into both his writings and 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.

Contents: Preface; 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 Rossetti, Elizabeth Helsinger; The 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 his scholars’: Ruskin, drawing and art education, Ray Haslam; The ’woman question’: Ruskin and the female artist, Pamela Gerrish Nunn; Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelite 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; References; Index.