What name did the leading English art critic of the Victorian era give to a series of letters addressed to British workmen during the 1870s?
John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.
Anna Blunden Anna Blunden (22 December 1829 – 1915) was an English, pre-Raphaelite artist, and a member of John Ruskin's circle. She was one of a number of women artists working and exhibiting during the Victorian age. Her best known work is "The Seamstress" (c.1854), a piece inspired by Thomas Hood’s poem of the same name. Starting her career with oil painting, Blunden eventually moves onto watercolor landscapes that make up a large portion of her body of work. Her work was regularly showcased in the Royal Academy and the Society of British Arts from 1854 to 1867, as well as the Birmingham Society of Artists.