John Ruskin
Published: 1863
Total Pages: 0
Get eBook
Retained copy, dated Geneva, 16 February 1863, with envelope. Regarding Turner, Claude Lorrain, and D. G. Rossetti: "It is seldom that falsehoods are so direct, pure, and foundationless, as those which you have given me the opportunity of contradicting. Every year of my life shows me some higher and more secret power in Turner: and deepens my contempt for Claude. I believe at this moment the Pre- Raphaelite school of painting...to be the only vital and true school of painting in Europe, and its English leader, Dante G. Rossetti to be, without any compare, the greatest of English painters now living....If I have not shown that Turner is greater than Claude (quite infinitely greater) my life has been wasted."