RUSKIN AS AN ARTIST.
[To THE E.DITOR OF TDB " SHILOTATOR.
S1R,—ln the Spectator of April 23rd, I ventured to question the appropriateness of calling Mr. W. M. Hunt a " Vermont•
Ruskin." I added, regarding the comparison to Ruskin, "Mr. Ruskin is notoriously not an artist, but an art critic ; while Mr. Hunt not only did not pretend to be an art critic, but far
from it but he was emphatically a painter." Mr. D. Oliver, in your last number, is, apparently, so shocked at my venturing to say that Mr. Ruskin is known as an art critic and not as an artist., that he takes it for granted that I use the word "artist" in a sense unknown to him, and" quite different from any to which many of your readers are accustomed." And he calls upon me to unfold my definition of an artist. I attached no peculiar meaning to it. I used the word in its ordinary acceptation, meaning a professed draughtsman or painter. The definition of " artist " is so loose a one, that it is obviously untrue to say that Mr. Ruskin is not an artist in a certain sense ; for he who produces works of art, be he painter, poet, orator, musician, or even weaver or shipbuilder, is, strictly speaking, an artist. With some exceptions, Mr. Ruskin's drawings and water- colours are illustrative of his literary work, and are for the purpose of instruction, not of artistic expression, per• se. They certainly never pretended to be anything more than delicate, truthful, and precise studies, full of painstaking and fidelity ; and, as such, precious work indeed, but not of a kind to make him recognised as an artist. Mr. Ruskin is not an artist, simply because he does not profess to be one. He is by profession a literary man,--:--a writer on Art ; a great critic, indeed, and as such—not as an artist—his name will live.—I am, Sir, &c.,
J. T. C.
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