The “Language of Painting”: aesthetic appreciation in Edwardian art criticism

In 1908 the artist-critic Walter Sickert (1860–1942) and the dealer-critic Robert Ross (1869–1918) engaged in a debate in the London art press and in their own private correspondence in which they discussed the idea of a “language of painting.” Using their debate as a case study, this article investigates how these writers posited different approaches to the practice of viewing art. I show how they used the notion of a “language of painting” as a basis for discussing critical authority, the nature of art appreciation, the role of beauty and pleasure, and the value of form and technique. In doing so, I reveal how they both adapted and departed from the ideas and rhetorical practices of nineteenth-century art writing, in order to consolidate their own critical authority and to present diversified ways of speaking about art attuned to new developments in the art world. In a wider sense, this article contributes to ongoing scholarly revaluation of the Edwardian period, which aims to recover a sense of the era’s innovation and heterogeneity.