Portrait of Rose La Touche 1862

This is John Ruskin’s “Portrait of Rose La Touche.” Ruskin, a prominent art critic and social thinker of Victorian England, painted this watercolor of Rose, his young muse, during a time when gender roles and expectations were sharply defined. Ruskin met Rose when she was a child and he became obsessed with her, proposing marriage when she turned eighteen, which she refused. The power dynamics inherent in their relationship—an older, established man and a young woman—reflect the broader societal inequalities of the era. Rose is depicted in profile, her gaze lowered, adorned with flowers, evoking a sense of idealized, feminine beauty. Ruskin once said, ‘Every increased knowledge opens new channels for the grief to enter into the soul.’ It’s as if he foreshadowed the tragic trajectory of their story. The piece captures a delicate and haunting beauty, but when viewed through the lens of their complex and ultimately tragic relationship, we can reflect on the emotional landscape of Victorian society, where love and beauty were often intertwined with power and control.