Victorian art criticism and the woman writer [electronic resource] / John Paul M. Kanwit.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Encouraging visual literacy : early-Victorian state sponsorship of the arts and the growing need for expert art commentary -- "Mere outward appearances"? Teaching household taste and social perception in Elizabeth Gaskell's North and south and contemporary art commentary -- "My name is the right one" : Lady Elizabeth (Rigby) Eastlake and the story of professional art criticism -- "I have often wished in vain for another's judgment" : modeling ideal aesthetic commentary in Anne Brontë's The tenant of Wildfell Hall -- A new kind of elitism? Art criticism and mid-Victorian exhibitions -- Interpreting Cleopatra : aesthetic guidance in Charlotte Brontë's Villette and George Eliot's Middlemarch -- Sensational sentiments : impressionism and the protection of difficulty in late-Victorian art criticism -- Conclusion : "An astonishingly tasteless idea"? Artistic value after September 11.

Description based on print version record.