Venus Verticordia was not one of Rossetti's most significant pieces, but it was particularly infamous for being the cause behind the end of Rosetti and Ruskin's friendship. John Ruskin was an art enthusiast, renowned critic and one of Rossetti's closest friends.@Helen Rossetti Angeli. Dante Gabriel Rossetti His Friends and Enemies. (London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1949) The two have a patron-artist relationship and Ruskin often bought paintings from him. Rossetti agreed that they were both on par in terms of intellect but felt that Ruskin did not have an infallible perspective of art like he did. Already experiencing mixed emotions about Rossetti's new style of artwork, the appearance of Venus Verticordia pushed Ruskin to his limits until he was no longer able to hide his disgust. In a series of letters addressed to Rossetti, Ruskin attacks the way in which he handles the oil paints and how coarse the overall tone is.@William Michael Rossetti. Rossetti Papers, 1862-1870.London: General Books LLC, 2009. While Rossetti's paintings did not resonate with the general masses, there were a few select groups who accepted his mode of aesthetics.@"Pre-Raphaelite Challenges to Victorian Canons of Beauty". pp. 31  It was acknowledged earlier that The PRB had an avant-garde feel to their work because they went against the norm to envision new methods that were ahead of their time. As a result, Rossetti's productions became popular within groups of advanced artists and later set the founding basis of the Modernist art movement.