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Study of Sky on Mount Pilatus John Ruskin
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Curator’s description:
Description
The sun's rays spread out from the sky to the left of the peaks of Mount Pilatus, six miles to the south of Luzern.
There is some date about the date of 25 November 1861 given in the inscription, as Ruskin's diary entry for the 25 November was written at Altdorf, about twenty miles south-east, where he had gone for three days' walking with Crawley and Couttet. However, the year is confirmed by the label which accompanied this drawing and its companion (also of Mount Pilatus), and Taylor proposes that both drawings, on paper of similar size and type, were in fact made the day before.
The drawing first appears in the 1878 revisions of the Teaching Collection, as no. 121 in the Rudimentary Series, alongside other drawings of mountains and skies. By 1906, however, it had been moved to no. 294 in the Educational Series, where it replaced a copy of Turner's mezzotint of Paestum which had, by then, been moved to no. 172 in the Rudimentary Series.
In his manuscript reorganisation of the Rudimentary Series, Ruskin describes how, by making rapid notes and then a separate drawing from memory, his students would be able to catch fleeting effects such as these - which, he noted, few 'well taught amateurs' seemed to produce.
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Details
- Artist/maker
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John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)
- Object type
- drawing
- Material and technique
- pen and brown ink on off-white paper with some dry brushwork and scratching out
- Dimensions
- 131 x 208 mm
- Associated place
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- Europe › Switzerland › Nidwalden › Pilatus › Pilatus (subject)
- Inscription
- Recto, all in ink:
lower right: Pilate. | 25th Nov. 61.
top left: Blue
Verso:
top left, in graphite: B2.Top
bottom right, in graphite: Edu 294a
centre right, the Ruskin School's stamp
just below, in ink: M.26
On a separate paper label, in ink: Sunsets - on two outlines of Pilate; weathered forms of steep beds. J.R. 1861
- Provenance
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Presumably presented by John Ruskin to the Ruskin Drawing School (University of Oxford); first recorded in the Ruskin Drawing School in 1878; transferred from the Ruskin Drawing School to the Ashmolean Museum c.1949
- No. of items
- 1
- Accession no.
- WA.RS.ED.294bis.a
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Subject terms allocated by curators:
Subjects
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References in which this object is cited include:
References
Taylor, Gerald, ‘John Ruskin: A Catalogue of Drawings by John Ruskin in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, 7 fascicles, 1998, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, no. 084.i
Ruskin, John, ‘Rudimentary Series 1878’, 1878, Oxford, Oxford University Archives, cat. Rudimentary no. 121
Ruskin, John, ‘The Works of John Ruskin’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), vol. XXI, pl. LXIII (top), f.p. 278
Ruskin, John, ‘The Ruskin Art Collection at Oxford: Catalogues, Notes and Instructions’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), 21, cat. Educational no. 294bis
Location
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- Western Art Print Room
Ruskin's Catalogues
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Ruskin's revision to the Rudimentary series (1878)
121.Two studies of sky on Mount Pilate; both records of most beautiful things passing away in a few moments. The upper one was sketched with ink in order to get, if possible, some look of the mist through which everything shone. The lower one, I am sorry to say, is as much as I can ever get as clouds are actually passing: but if students will get into the habit of noting R. as much as they can at the moment an securely and then setting down afterwards in another drawing what they remember, many of them will be able to do incomparably better things than I ever could, because I cannot draw from memory in the least. It is very wonderful to me that among all the able sketches which I see continually brought home from Switzerland by well taught amateurs, there are scarcely ever any records of fleeting effects of this kind done conscientiously.
