How one critic established the success of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, but set its landscape painters an impossible challenge.
Ruskin
Why did the Pre-Raphaelites want to return to the ‘purity’ of painting before Raphael? Did they succeed?
The vital relationship between painter and patron, donor, dealer and others. Shown in examples from Rubens, Velázquez, Brett, Renoir and Bonnard.
His four best paintings viewed in their historical context, and consideration of the constraints that he painted under. What if?
He became the most influential critic of painting in Britain, providing the Pre-Raphaelites with strong support. But that proved capricious, and eventually destructive to landscape painting.
Plans to celebrate anniversaries of major painters, series on narrative paintings, and more, for the coming year.
The less famous Wedding at Cana which preceded that of Veronese; two Assumptions, a Last Supper which still shocked Ruskin 300 years later, and episodes from the story of Saint Mark.
Visit Ford in Northumberland and you’ll see her murals in the old village school. Taught to paint by Rossetti, she is claimed as a Pre-Raphaelite. Was she?
Was John Ruskin a promoter or detractor? How great was his influence on the style, practice, and success?
After 1870, he drifted from the Pre-Raphaelite, painting more seascapes, but still some wonderful coastal scenes.
