ABSTRACT
The painters of the period worked in an atmosphere charged with the influences, and he use the plural advisedly, of Ruskin; and Rossetti, over and above what each member of the Pre-Raphaelite group owed to the empassioned preacher of sound and false doctrine, was for certain years under a heavy direct obligation. One knows not how much to credit to Ruskin's wisdom, how much to his luck: there is evidence enough that his understanding of Rossetti was at certain times seriously at fault, and the final attempt of the smaller man to brow-beat the greater was painfully comic. Yet, for a while, Ruskin did Rossetti the great service of keeping him to the small things painted out of the inner heat of imagination when clients were tempting Rossetti to do single female heads out of his dreamy sensuality. There were very few in that period that was capable of full achievement.
