Commentary
Introduction
Ruskin published this famous pamphlet in August 1851 by recasting
two letters that he wrote
to the
<hi rend="i">Times</hi>
on
13 and
30 May. The letters
were a response to a severe two-part
review that appeared in the
3 and
7 May
issues of the paper by the
anonymous
<hi rend="i">Times</hi>
art
critic. The latter was only the most prominent, if not the most negative,
of the critical attacks that had been made upon the work of
Hunt and Millais as signature artists
of “Pre-Raphaelitism”, the artistic movement
recently inaugurated by DGR and his friends. Hunt and Millais
(but not DGR) had
submitted work for the Royal Academy Exhibition that opened on
3 May and the critics were virtually unanimous in denouncing the work.
Millais's
<hi rend="i">
<xref doc="a.op36.rap">Christ in the House
of his Parents</xref>
</hi>
was a particular object of
attack.
A notable voice among the critics was Dickens, who published a
singularly obtuse and abusive notice in
<hi rend="i">Household Words</hi>
(15 June 1850). Ruskin's letters, and his subsequent
pamphlet, thus
came as a critical
moment, giving an endorsement to the work of the PRB from an
authoritative cultural voice. The
entire exchange represents a seminal moment
in the history of the PRB.
Textual History: Composition
Textual History: Revision
Ruskin's texts in the
<hi rend="i">Times</hi>
are much briefer
than this pamphlet text and they address the works of art more particularly. When
Ruskin came to compose the pamphlet, he recast his thought into a much more
general form, making his defense of the PRB an extension of his larger views
about contemporary art-making, art-training, and art-criticism.
Bibliographic
Fredeman,
<hi rend="i">Pre-Raphaelitism</hi>
(1965), 9-13
Dickens,
“Old Lamps for New Ones”,
<hi rend="i">Household Words</hi>
(15 June 1850), 265-266
Jump, J. D.,
“Ruskin's Reputation in the Eighteen-Fifties:
The Evidence of the Three Principal Weeklies ”,
<hi rend="i">PMLA</hi>
63 (June 1948), 678-685