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Ruskinian Shakespeare

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John Ruskin and the Victorian Theatre

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Abstract

When John Ruskin wrote to Wilson Barrett in 1884 praising his production of Claudian and urging him to follow it up with other classically-set plays, he ended his letter with the ringing statement: ‘With scene-painting like that at the Princess’s Theatre, (you) might do more for art teaching than all the galleries and professors of Christendom’ (CW 37.34). In so doing, he entered into what was to become a major debate in late Victorian artistic circles — the question of whether or not theatrical scene painting should rank alongside other forms of painting as an art rather than as a theatrical craft.

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Notes

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Authors
  1. Katherine Newey
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  2. Jeffrey Richards
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© 2010 Katherine Newey and Jeffrey Richards

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Newey, K., Richards, J. (2010). Ruskinian Shakespeare. In: John Ruskin and the Victorian Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230276512_7

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