John Ruskin. W. G. Collingwood. Painted at Brantwood in 1886. Used by the kind permission of The Ruskin Museum, Coniston, UK. Click on image to enlarge it.
Comparing this portrait to the one Arthur Severn painted, James Spates comments that unlike Severn, who “makes JR into an utter depressive, Collingwood’s portrait makes him look like what he was, a hero. I first saw these hanging next to each other in the Ruskin Museum in Coniston in the ’90s and couldn’t believe the difference. The pictures are an enduring testimony to the truth that what you see in a picture is the person who painted it, more, often, than the person who is the subject of it.”
Last modified 17 January 2019