ABSTRACT
Henry James's first piece of art criticism was actually a review of art critics. "An English Critic of French Painting" appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in March of 1868, significantly on the eve of Henry James's formative first tour of Europe. James notes in this article that although the "profession of art critic" had been "largely and successfully exercised in France," England had produced only one "eminent representative" in the form of John Ruskin.! This seems a curious judgment to level against a nation which by 1868 was already in the throes of PreRaphaelitism and Ruskinian aestheticism and was fostering in addition to the three journalist-critics James mentions by name-W.M. Rosetti, F.T. Palgrave, and P.G. Hamerton--academic critics like Walter Pater and painter-critics like William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and James A.M. Whistler.2 It seems more plausible that James, writing for an American audience, means to underline a need for American art critics.
