ABSTRACT
Ruskin enters the history of Pre-Raphaelism suddenly and dramatically in 1851 with his celebrated letters to The Times. These came in response to the critical onslaught by a reviewer who had accepted the current belief, a belief which was supported by the name that the Brethren had chosen for themselves, that the movement was archaistic, that it called for a return to medieval methods and what was thought to be medieval incompetence. Ruskin was at his happiest and best, or at least at his most convincing, when he was discussing questions of verisimilitude, and there is something very conclusive in the way in which he convicts The Times critic of blindness, stupidity and malice. The letters to The Times were followed by further polemics and in 1855, carrying war and havoc into the enemy’s camp he issued the first number of Academy Notes which was sold beneath the portico of the National Gallery where the Academy held its summer exhibition.
