| 介绍（英） | The leading Victorian critic Ruskin wrote on aesthetics, art and architecture, collected art and was himself an accomplished watercolorist. Herkomer based this study on his own watercolor of 1879 shown at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1881 (now National Portrait Gallery, London). In 1880, the artist created a related mezzotint published by the Fine Art Society and likely made the present drawing for Henry Blackburn's "Grosvenor Notes" (1881). The latter periodical often asked artists whose works were being reviewed to supply a drawing for reproduction, and in this case used photo-typography. Herkomer and Ruskin had bonded when the latter retired as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford at the age of sixty and Herkomer took up the position. The connection encouraged Ruskin, who did not think highly of his own appearance, to agree to sit. In a letter to Sara Anderson of December 1, 1879, the critic wrote, “I’ve been quite a prisoner to Mr. Herkomer, who has, however, made a beautiful drawing of me, the first that has ever given what good may be gleaned out of the clods of my face." At the Met, an example of Herkomer's related mezzotint (44.84(1)) is bound with a set architectural prints after drawings by Ruskin, titled "Examples of Architecture of Venice," 1851. |