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Ruskin's Reputation in the Eighteen-Fifties : The Evidence of the Three Principal Weeklies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

J. D. Jump
J. D. Jump*
Affiliation:
University or Manchester
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Extract

Mr. R. H. Wilenski protests against the common belief that Ruskin was a kind of Art-Dictator of England in the eighteen-fifties. Ruskin, he says, was not a best-selling author during that decade; nor, on the other hand, was he respected by established artists and architects. So slight was his repute, indeed, that his letters to the Times in May 1851 can have done little to influence either the general or the specialist public in favor of pre-Raphaelitism. This drastic revision of accepted notions has had surprisingly little effect. In Mr. Paul Bloomfield's William Morris, Ruskin appears once more as the critic who gave “status” to the Pre-Raphaelites; and Mr. William Gaunt declares that on May 13, 1851, “an eagle scream was heard, a mighty talon hovered over the correspondence columns of The Times. It was Ruskin to the rescue. The Pre-Raphaelites had found a champion.” Neither of these writers mentions Wilenski's dissent.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , June 1948 , pp. 678 - 685
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1948

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References

1 John Ruskin (London, 1933), pp. 369-83.

2 (London, 1934), p. 64.

3 The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy (London, 1942), p. 31.

4 Wilenski, p. 370.

5 Rossetti, Some Reminiscences (2 vols., London, 1906), ii, 298. Rossetti states that he “reviewed various volumes of” Ruskin's in the Spectator (i, 180); internal evidence suggests that he wrote most, if not all, of its articles published before 1859 which are used in the present paper. In 1858, Rossetti was also art-critic of the Saturday Review (op. cit., ii, 299; W. M. Rossetti, Fine Art, Chiefly Contemporary [London, 1867], pp. xvii-xx); but the only Saturday article of that year which is used here is the review of The Political Economy of Art, which would not necessarily be the work of the art-critic.

6 Rossetti (d.), Praeraphaelite Diaries and Letters (London, 1900), p. 300.

7 xxiv (May 31, 1851), 523-1 (“The Royal Academy Exhibition. [Fourth Notice.]”); xxiv (Oct. 4,1851), 955-7 (“Pre-Raphaelitism” [reprinted in Rossetti, Fine Art, pp. 168–77]).

8 xxvi (July 23,1853), Supplement, pp. 5-6.

9 xxix (Feb. 2,1856), 145-6.

10 xxiv (Dec. 20,1851), Supplement, p. 5 (“Mr. Ruskin's Works on Venice”); xxvi (Oct. 8,1853), 974-5 (“Ruskin's Stones of Venice” [in]); xxvii (May 27, 1854), 565-6 (“Ruskin's Lectures on Architecture and Painting”); xxvii (Dec. 2, 1854), 1274 (“The Arundel Society” [review of Ruskin's notes on Giotto]); xxix (May 17, 1856), 535-6 (“Ruskin's Modern Painters Volume iv”).

11 Spectator, xxvii (Nov. 18, 1854), 1219; xxvii (Dec. 2, 1854), 1275; xxvii (Dec. 16, 1854), 1331. These are not mentioned by Wilenski in his survey of Ruskin's lecturing activities during the eighteen-fifties (pp. 380-3).

12 xxx (July 4,1857), 713.

13 Rossetti, Some Reminiscences, i, 181.

14 xxx (Jan. 31, 1857), 126.

15 xxix (Nov. 1, 1856), 1159-60. See also xxix (Nov. 29, 1856), 1266; xxix (Dec. 20, 1856), 1366; xxx (Feb. 7,1857), 162; xxx (Oct. 31, 1857), 1142 (“The National Gallery”); xxxi (Nov. 6, 1858), 1172 (“The National Gallery”).

16 xxxi (July 10,1858), 741.

17 xxxii (May 7,1859), 495-6.

18 xxxii (May 21, 1859), 543.

19 xxxii (May 28,1859), 564-5.

20 xxvii (May 27,1854), 565-6.

21 xxxii (May 14,1859), 520.

22 Athenaeum, xxix (July 26,1856), 921-3. The authority for all statements regarding the authorship of particular contributions to the Athenaeum is L. A. Marchand, The Athenaeum (Chapel Hill, 1941), pp. 352-7.

23 xxx (April 11,1857), 476 (“Fine-Art Gossip”).

24 XXVI (July 23, 1853), 879-81.

25 xxviii (Jan. 6, 1855), 20-2 (review of C. R. Leslie, A Hand-book for Young Painters); xxx (Jan. 24,1857), 108-9 (review of Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House).

26 xxxii (i) (May 28,1859), 703-4 (review by Thornbury of The Two Paths).

27 xxvii (May 27, 1854), 650-2 (second review by Thornbury of Lectures on Architecture and Painting).

28 All these charges were made repeatedly during the eighteen-fifties. See especially Athenaeum, xxvi (Oct. 22, 1853), 1249-50 (review by Chorley of The Stones of Venice, in); and xxxii (i) (May 28, 1859), 703-4.

29 xxiv (March 22, 1851), 330-1 (by W. H. Leeds).

30 xxiv (May 17, 1851), 524 (short notice of Something on Ruskinism, by “an Architect”).

31 xxiv (June 21,1851), 664-5 (review of Examples of the Architecture of Venice, i).

32 xxiv (Aug. 23,1851), 908-9.

33 xxvi (Oct. 22, 1853), 1249-50. A sign of Ruskin's growing transatlantic reputation at this time was his election, in respectable academic company, to honorary membership of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. This was reported without comment in the Athenaeum, xxvi (June 4,1853), 681 (“Fine-Art Gossip”).

34 xxvii (May 20,1854), 611-2 (first review of Lectures on Architecture and Painting).

35 xxviii (April 21, 1855), 465 (short notice of ?. B. Denison, Lectures on Gothic Architecture).

36 xxviii (June 23, 1855), 736 (review of Giotto and his works in Padua).

37 xxviii (August 4, 1855), 906.

38 xxix (Jan. 26, 1856), 97-9.

39 xxix (May 10, 1856), 578-80.

40 xxix (June 21, 1856), 783-4.

41 xxx (Feb. 28, 1857), 282-3.

42 xxxii (i) (May 28, 1859), 703-4.

43 Saturday Review, i (Feb. 23, 1856), 320-2; i (March 8, 1856), 370-2; i (March 29, 1856), 440-1.

44 M. M. Bevington, The Saturday Review 1855-68 (New York, 1941), pp. 336-7.

45 S.R., ii (Sept. 27,1856), 489-91. Burne-Jones had described Ruskin as “a Luther of the Arts” in an article contributed to the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, June, 1856 (?. T. Cook, The Life of John Ruskin, 2 vols. [London, 1911], i, 348).

46 ii (May 10,1856), 31-2; ii (May 17,1856), 57-9.

47 iii (May 16,1857), 451-3; iii (May 30,1857), 497-8.

48 iii (April 11, 1857), 332-4.

49 iv (Oct. 24,1857), 374-5.

50 iv (Nov. 7, 1857), 418-9 (“M. M rim e on the Fine Arts in England”).

51 v (Jan. 23, 1858), 90-1.

52 viii (Aug. 27, 1859), 260-1.

53 For the Saturday's reception of Ruskin's subsequent publications on political economy, see Bevington, pp. 133-6.