John Ruskin

In the summer of 1853 the critic John Ruskin, his young wife Effie, and the painter John Everett Millais travelled to Glenfinlas in the Scottish Highlands, where Millais began this portrait of Ruskin beside a rocky waterfall. Over those weeks Effie and Millais fell in love. Her marriage to Ruskin was annulled the following year, and she married Millais in 1855. Millais still had to complete the portrait afterwards, and called it the most hateful task he had ever performed. The rushing water and the exactly rendered rock behind Ruskin follow the critic's own rule, to paint nature precisely. Ruskin, who had defended Millais in print, went on praising his work regardless.