Harvard University. Art Museums

Fogg Art Museum

Virginia Anderson

Theodore E. Stebbins

Though the eminent nineteenth-century British critic and watercolorist John Ruskin never set foot in the United States, his writings were widely read here. American artists eagerly took up his call for the meticulous depiction of nature and the preservation through copying of some of the finest works of civilization before time or misguided restoration overtook them. His influence was disseminated by the legendary Charles Eliot Norton, the nation's first professor of art history, who taught at Harvard from 1874 to 1898, and by Norton's protege Charles Herbert Moore. The Last Ruskinians is the catalogue of an exhibition that traces Ruskin's impact on these teachers, their students, and many other artists and collectors. The works represented here include floral studies, landscapes, architectural details, views of Venice, and copies after ancient, medieval, and Renaissance art. Most are in watercolor, Ruskin's favorite medium. Included are ten works by Ruskin himself, all drawn from the Harvard collections, and twice as many by his friend Moore, a Harvard drawing instructor and the Fogg Art Museum's first director.

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