Hello Friends,
Allow me to introduce you to the founder of the Movement.

Now that you have met him here is a rendering of his actions.
John Ruskin, the greatest Victorian bar Victoria, was an artist, scientist, poet, environmentalist, philosopher, and importantly here, the pre-eminent art critic of his time.
He provided the impetus that gained respectability for the PRE-Raphaelites. Ruskin’s letter to The Times in 1851, supporting the much-derided Pre-Raphaelites for their naturalism and truth to nature, marked a turning point in their perception by the public. In a second letter, he wrote that the Pre-Raphaelites might "lay the foundation of a school of art nobler than the world has seen for 300 years."

This is now known as the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Ruskin met with the Pre-Raphaelites, he encouraged them in their ideal, acting as a tutor, mentor, and generous supporter to Rossetti, Millais and Holman Hunt, as well as later artists in a similar spirit such as John Brett and John William Inchbold. He was a long time friend of the children's illustrator Kate Greenaway, and also of the bird painter H. S. Marks.

Ruskin taught Pre-Raphaelite style drawing at the Working Men's College in London for some years, enlisting Rossetti to teach figure and water color painting, and afterwords Ford Madox Brown to fill the same position. Afterwords, he left London, becoming Slade Professor of Art at Oxford ( where there is still an art college named after him) and then removing to the Lake District where he helped to start the Environmental Movement.

There is a Ruskin Museum in Sheffield which has some of his sketches on permanent display.

Respectfully,

Ralph Jones