Gutzon Borglum's Portrait Sculpture of John Ruskin

George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History, Brown University

Gutzon Borghum, John Ruskin. 1904. Bronze. 15 x 22 inches. Formerly collection, Rhode Island School of Design; currently in Metropolitan Museum of Art.

According to Judith Tolnick, Gutzon Borglum extolled John Ruskin particularly as "the most marvelous, magnificent, unappreciated genius the world has ever known." The statuette of Ruskin is based on ones that Borglum drew during his stay in London, ca. 1893 through 1902. It was completed in bronze in 1904. . . . The pensive pose of the subject is remarkably similar to those of ancient Greek figures of philosophers who hold scrolls in one hand and unusually support their bearded chins with the other. A European tradition contemporary to Borglum used the ancient pose to depict famous men of the Fine Arts."

References

Judith Ellen Tolnick. [Catalogue entry.] The Classical Spirit in American Portraiture. Ed. Kermit Champa. Providence: Brown U., 1976. 111.

Last modified August 2003