Ruskin's lifelong admiration of the Rogers illustrations

Ruskin never lost his high regard for Turner 's engraved vignettes in Rogers's Italy and Rogers's Poems. He referred to them frequently in Modern Painters I (1843), to illustrate aspects of Turner's art. In his series of articles entitled The Cestus of Aglaia, published in The Art Journal during 1865-66, Ruskin considered the Rogers illustrations to be 'as skilful and tender as any handwork, of the kind, ever done' ( Works, 19.151). In 1881, in his notes on the Turner sketches in the National Gallery, he referred to them as 'the loveliest engravings ever produced by the pure line' ( Works, 13.380).

See also Ruskin and Turner's illustrations to Rogers's Poems. The influence of the vignette form of the Turner illustrations on Ruskin is discussed in Davis, Ruskin's Vignettes.

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