imself into the
work of overturning the established, complacent school of the time, and
with splendid enthusiasm and an unfailing belief in himself and his
ideas he undertook to reform what had been, and to raise current
conceptions of art to a more exalted and lofty plane. We have seen what
he had already achieved in his first dashing period of literary
activity, in the production of the early volumes of "Modern Painters,"
and in his "Seven Lamps" and "Stones of Venice." While he was at work on
the concluding volumes of the first and last of these great books there
arose in England the somewhat fantastic movement in art, launched by the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which included such Ruskinites and other
devotees of early Christian and mediaeval painting as Rossetti, Millais,
Morris, Burne-Jones, and Holman Hunt. Towards this new school of
symbolists and affectationists Ruskin was not at first drawn, since it
seemed to him unduly idealistic, if not mystic, and smacked not a
little, as he thought, of popery. Later, however, he saw good in it, as
a breaking away from academic trammels; while he recognized the earnest
enthusiasm of the little band of artists and artist-poets, as well as
their technical dexterity and brilliance. With ready decision as well as
with his accustomed zeal for art, Ruskin ended by defending and
applauding the new innovators, particularly as their chief motive was
the one the master had always strenuously pled for,--adherence to the
simplicity of nature. Their scrupulous attention to detail,
characteristic of the Pre-Raphaelites, later on bore good results, even
after the Brotherhood fell apart, especially in William Morris's
application of their art-principles to household decoration and
furnishings. But for the time the movement was loudly mocked and
decried, and perhaps all the more because of Ruskin's espousal of the
fervid band, his letters of defence in the London "Times," and his
discussion in his booklet on "Pre-Raphaelitism." Heedless of the outcry,
Ruskin pursued his own self-confident course, and by the year 1860 he
had completed his "Modern Painters," and, in spite of objurgation and
detraction, had won a great name for himself as a critic and expounder,
while expanding himself over almost the whole world of art.

We have said that Pre-Raphaelitism, as a movement in art, was
contemporaneously jeered at; while to-day, among superficial or
inappreciative students of the period, seriousl