John Ruskin: Art Critic meets Art Pubic

There's a famous art critic from the nineteenth century named John Ruskin who *allegedly* refused to have sex with his wife, Effie Gray, upon discovering she had pubic hair. An excerpt from a letter to her father:

"He alleged various reasons, hatred of children, religious motives, a desire to preserve my beauty, and finally this last year he told me his true reason... that he had imagined women were quite different to what he saw I was, and that the reason he did not make me his Wife was because he was disgusted with my person the first evening 10th April [1848]."

Gray eventually sought an annulment to Ruskin on the grounds of failure to consummate. According to his lawyer, Ruskin had this to say:

"It may be thought strange that I could abstain from a woman who to most people was so attractive. But though her face was beautiful, her person was not formed to excite passion. On the contrary, there were certain circumstances in her person which completely checked it."

(Effie Gray ended up married with eight kids to artist John Millais; Ruskin remained a bachelor.)

Is this the key to understanding Trance? one final piece of evidence- In 1872, Ruskin *set fire* to a series of etchings he considered obscene. The artist? [Francisco Goya](https://brooklynrail.org/2021/03/artseen/Francisco-de-Goya-Goyas-Graphic-Imagination).