Denmark Hill, Jan. 26.
[From “The Leicester Chronicle and Mercury,” January 31, and reprinted in “The
Times,” February 2, 1880.]
ON THE PURCHASE OF PICTURES.
Dear Sir: Your letter is deeply interesting to me, but what use is there in my telling you what to do? The mob won’t let you do it. It is fatally true that no one nowadays can appreciate pictures by the Old Masters! and that every one can understand Frith’s “Derby Day”—that is to say, everybody is interested in jockeys, harlots, mountebanks, and men about town; but nobody in saints, heroes, kings, or wise men—either from the east or west. What can you do? If your Committee is strong enough to carry such a resolution as the appointment of any singly responsible person, any well-informed gentleman of taste in your neighborhood, to buy for the Leicester public just what he would buy for himself—that is to say, himself and his family—children being the really most important of the untaught public—and to answer simply to all accusation—that is, a good and worthy piece of art (past or present, no matter which)—make the most and best you can of it. That method so long as tenable will be useful. I know of no other.
Faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin.[65]
LETTERS ON ART.
III.
PRE-RAPHAELITISM.
The Pre-raphaelite Brethren. 1851 (May 9).
The Pre-raphaelite Brethren. 1851 (May 26).
“The Light of the World,” Holman Hunt. 1854.
“The Awakening Conscience,” Holman Hunt. 1854.
Pre-raphaelitism in Liverpool. 1858.
Generalization and the Scotch Pre-raphaelites. 1858.