Pre-Raphaelitism

London: Smith, Elder, and Co.,. 1851.

First edition. 8vo. 218x140mm. pp. vi, [7]-68, [1 adverts, 1bl]. Original blue wrappers, delicate and somewhat soiled and marked, with tears and damage to the spine. An ownership inscription in pencil to upper cover. Internally very good although the hinges are cracked and loose but holding. Rare in commerce, the last copy in the wrappers appearing in 1992.
By 1851, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was three years old. Its infancy had been difficult with critics and the public rejecting their use of heightened realism, self-conscious religiosity and mock-mediaevalism. A nadir was reached in 1850 when John Everett Millais's Christ in the House of His Parents was the subject of a vicious review by Dickens who described the figure of the child Jesus as "a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering red-headed boy in a bed-gown". Dickens was not alone: The Times attacked the painting which prompted Ruskin to write to the newspaper in defence of the PRB. He later met them and the following year he wrote Pre-Raphaelitism. In truth, this is an eccentric work which seeks to link Turner with Raphael and the pre-Raphaelites. At its heart is an argument for the primacy of nature in art. This was Ruskin's great aesthetic aim and his support for the PRB should perhaps be seen as a recognition that they too shared his outlook. Ruskin may have approached the subject of pre-Raphelitism sideways but his intervention was successful and the PRB came to be seen as among the most important painters of the nineteenth century.