The five volumes of _Modern Painters_ appeared at various intervals
between 1843 and 1860, from the time Ruskin was twenty-four until he
was forty. The first volume was published in May, 1843; the second, in
April, 1846; the third, January 15, 1856; the fourth, April 14, 1856;
the last, in June, 1860. As his knowledge of his subject broadened and
deepened, we find the later volumes differing greatly in viewpoint
and style from the earlier; but, as stated in the preface to the last
volume, "in the main aim and principle of the book there is no
variation, from its first syllable to its last." Ruskin himself
maintained that the most important influence upon his thought in
preparation for his work in _Modern Painters_ was not from his "love
of art, but of mountains and seas"; and all the power of judgment he
had obtained in art, he ascribed to his "steady habit of always
looking for the subject principally, and for the art only as the means
of expressing it." The first volume was published as the work of "a
graduate of Oxford," Ruskin "fearing that I might not obtain fair
hearing if the reader knew my youth." The author's proud father did
not allow the secret to be kept long. The title Ruskin originally
chose for the volume was _Turner and the Ancients_. To this Smith,
Elder & Co., his publishers, objected, and the substitution of _Modern
Painters_ was their suggestion The following is the title-page of the
first volume in the original edition:
MODERN PAINTERS:
_Their Superiority_
_In the Art of Landscape Painting_
_To_ all
_The Ancient Masters_
proved by examples of
The True, the Beautiful, and the Intellectual,
From the
Works of Modern Artists, especially
From those of J.M.W. Turner, Esq., R.A.
By a Graduate of Oxford
(Quotation from Wordsworth)
London: Smith, Elder & Co., 65 Cornhill.
1843.