Race and Radicalism: Ruskin and Murillo

Abstract

Argues that Ruskin’s reaction to Murillo’s paintings has its foundation in politics as well as aesthetics. Believes the passage on Murillo in The Stones of Venice reveals important tensions in Ruskin’s thought, and his comments about the artist’s sensualism mask Ruskin’s unease over the disturbing quality of some of the subjects he encountered in Murillo’s work. Links Ruskin’s assessment to one provided by William Hazlitt sometime earlier.