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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
A LETTER ADDRESSED TO FRANZ GOEDECKER
Brantwood, March 23th, 1883.
My dear Sir,—I am greatly interested by the photographs you have sent me from your very clever drawings, but they are to me anything but “jokes.” I see no matter of merriment either in the weakness of age or the abortions of vulgar form; and I sincerely hope that you will not waste your real powers in pandering to the malice or the stupidity of those people who do. If you add to your present gift of seizing grotesque or abnormal character the skill proper to a painter, you might take a position of most useful influence in representing the evils and dangers of our great cities and manufactories: and you might win for yourself such an honourable fame as that of Hogarth, instead of the momentary praise of amusing the idleness of evening parties.
Believe me, faithfully yours,
John Ruskin.
“THE IRISH GREEN BOOK”
Sandgate, January 13, 1888.
Sir,—I am extremely obliged by your having sent me the “Green Book,” as it informs me of things which I am unable, in the time at my disposal, to ascertain; and cannot venture, until some evidence like this comes of their being matter of common notoriety, to imagine. The caricatures are far more powerful and less gross than those of the old English school, and I suppose art of this kind to be the only means of making a vivid impression on some orders of the populace.
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