The Political Economy of Art: being the substance (with additions) of two lectures delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857

The Political Economy of Art: being the substance (with additions) of two lectures delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857

Ruskin, John

London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1872

Internet Archive

1872

George Eliot to Sara Sophia Hennell, 17 January 1858. “Herbert Spencer dined with us last week, and I had a talk with him about his monetary article, which interests me strongly. It is better written than his things have been of late, probably because it was written more rapidly. He cleared up several questions for me, and inclined me to think that he must be in the right. But I have not time at present to think of the subject except in a scrambling way. Apropos, I don't know whether you look out for Ruskin's books whenever they appear. His little book on the Political Economy of Art contains some magnificent passages, mixed up with stupendous specimens of arrogant absurdity on some economical points. But I venerate him as one of the great Teachers of the day -- his absurdities on practical points do no harm, but the grand doctrines of truth and sincerity in art, and the nobleness and solemnity of our human life, which he teaches with the inspiration of a Hebrew prophet, must be stirring up young minds in a promising way. Mr. Lewes has been enjoying a week's holiday at Vernon Hill, and was very pleased to find Alice Helps the eldest daughter there, a girl of seventeen, become an enthusiastic student of painting under Ruskin, and stoutly battling against the falsity that paints what the painter does not see. The two last volumes of Modern Painters contain, I think, some of the finest writing of this age. He is strongly akin to the sublimest part of Wordsworth, whom, by the bye, we are reading now with fresh admiration for his beauties and tolerance for his faults.” GEL 2: 422-3

Ruskin, John, The Political Economy of Art: being the substance (with additions) of two lectures delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857, George Eliot's Reading, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/57136

https://georgeeliotarchive.org/files/original/3825316b50a3b94ff010813b2a411e26.pdf